Hanford is the most-polluted place in America. On our last episode, you heard about the nuclear plant’s largely-forgotten history–how it poisoned the people living downwind. On our season finale: a nuclear safety auditor tries to get it shut down, the downwinders struggle for justice, and we take you into the plant itself. The story of Hanford reveals that expertise is always a political battle, and never as straightforward as simply collecting facts–whether it’s executives putting profit over a safety auditor’s well-documented warnings, a community-based research pitted against government-backed studies, or turning a world-changing nuclear reactor into a dull scientific lecture.

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You can also find related articles on our website, citedpodcast.com. Including articles by our research assistant, Nicole Yakashiro, including: a detailed Hanford timeline, as well as the colonial history of the Hanford site. Plus, a transcript.

———-PROGRAMMING NOTE———-

Sadly, this is the last episode of our season! We’ll be back in Spring 2021, but we’ll be launching a new show in the meantime. You’ll find the first few episodes in this feed, so stay subscribed. The best way to stay abreast of our plans for our new season is to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. You’ll hear about it there first. Plus, while you’re waiting, you might want to check out some of the other stuff that our team makes. Like Crackdown, a podcast about the drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents.

———-FEEDBACK———

How did you like the season? Which was your favourite episode, which was your least favourite episode? What should we do next? Let us know! Email your feedback to [email protected]–we might just read it on the show.

———-CREDITS———

This episode was produced Gordon Katic and Polly Leger. With editing support from Acey Rowe. Nicole Yakashiro was our research assistant, and Aurora Tejeida was our fact-checker.

Our theme song and original music is by our composer, Mike Barber. Dakota Koop is our graphic designer. Our production manager is David Tobiasz, and executive producers are Gordon Katic and Sam Fenn.

We’d like to thank historian Sarah Fox author of “Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West,” as well as Kate Brown, author of “Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters.” Check those out, and also check out Michael D’Antonio’s “Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal.” These books were indispensable to us, and we highly recommend them.

If you want to learn more about the Downwinder lawsuits against Hanford, we recommend: The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight For Atomic Justice. That’s from Trisha T. Pritikin, with a forward from Karen Dorn Steele

Thanks to the many others we talked to along the way– including historians Linda M. Richards and Robert Franklin. As well as, Trisha Pritikin, Tom Carpenter, John Fox, and Maynard Plahuta. Thanks also to Karen Richards who helped record our interview with Patricia Hoover.

This episode was funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. It’s part of a larger project on the politics of historical commemoration. Professor Eagle Glassheim at the University of British Columbia is the academic lead on that project.

Cited is produced out of the Centre of Ethics at the University of Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. Cited is also produced out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia — that’s on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

The post #9: America’s Chernobyl (2 of 2) appeared first on Cited Podcast.

Richland, Washington is a company town that sprang up almost overnight in the desert of South Eastern Washington. Its employer is the federal government, and its product is plutonium. The Hanford nuclear site was one of the Manhattan Project sites, and it made the plutonium for the bomb that devastated Nagasaki. Here, the official history is one of scientific achievement, comfortable houses, and good-paying jobs. But it doesn’t include the story of what happened after the bomb was dropped — neither in Japan, nor right there in Washington State. On part one of our two-part season finale, we tell the largely-forgotten story of the most toxic place in America.

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You can also find related articles on our website, citedpodcast.com. Including articles by our research assistant, Nicole Yakashiro, including: a detailed Hanford timeline, as well as the colonial history of the Hanford site. Plus, a transcript.

———-PROGRAMMING NOTE———-

Yes, Cited has an album. Our brilliant composer Mike Barber put it together, and you can find it on his website and on Bandcamp. Check it out.

Plus, we have branded mugs. And we’re doing a very simple giveaway. Write a review of Cited on Stitcher or Apple Podcasts, and then email me us a photo to [email protected]. We’ll randomly pick three of the people who email, and send you a free mug.

———-FOLLOW CITED———

To keep up with Cited, Secondary Symptoms, and our upcoming show: follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Tweet at us, or email your feedback to [email protected]–we might just read it on the show.

———-CREDITS———-

This episode was produced Gordon Katic and Polly Leger. With editing support from Acey Rowe. Nicole Yakashiro was our research assistant, and Aurora Tejeida was our fact-checker.

Our theme song and original music is by our composer, Mike Barber. Dakota Koop is our graphic designer. Our production manager is David Tobiasz, and executive producers are Gordon Katic and Sam Fenn.

We’d like to thank historians Sarah Fox, author of “Downwind: A People’s History of the Nuclear West,” as well as Kate Brown, author of “Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters.” Check those out, and also check out Michael D’Antonio’s “Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal.” These books were indispensable to us. You can find links to those and others things at citedpodcast.com. But don’t read anything until you hear next week’s episode, because you might read some spoilers.

Thanks to the many others we talked to along the way– including historians Linda M. Richards and Robert Franklin. As well as, Pat Hoover, Trisha Pritikin, Tom Carpenter, John Fox, and Maynard Plahuta.

This episode was funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. It’s part of a larger project on the politics of historical commemoration. Professor Eagle Glassheim at the University of British Columbia is the academic lead on that project.

Cited is produced out of the Centre of Ethics at the University of Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. Cited is also produced out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia — that’s on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

The post #8: America’s Chernobyl (1 of 2) appeared first on Cited Podcast.

At Crosstown Clinic, doctors are turning addiction treatment on its head: they’re prescribing heroin-users the very drug they’re addicted to. This is the story of one clinic’s quest to remove the harms of addiction, without removing the addiction itself.

———-PROGRAMMING NOTE———-

This is one of the best episodes in our archive. It was broadcast March 9th, 2017, and was honoured with a 2017 Jack Webster Foundation award for excellence in feature reporting in radio. The Jack Webster Awards are BC’s most prestigious journalism awards.

Our next original documentary will be out next week.

The Heroin Clinic was made in partnership with the Vancouver newspaper The Georgia Straight and the podcast Life of the Law. Check out the companion piece we produced with Travis here.

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If you want to hear more stories about the drug war, check out our other podcast Crackdown. Recently, Crackdown produced an episode commemorating longtime Vancouver drug user activist, Dave Murrary. Dave is pretty much the only reason this heroin clinic ever took off, and his story is chronicled in more detail on Crackdown.

———-FOLLOW CITED———-

To keep up with Cited, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Tweet at us, or email your feedback to [email protected]–we might just read it on the show. 

———-CREDITS———-

This radio documentary was produced by Gordon Katic, Sam Fenn, Alex Kim, and Travis Lupick. With editing from Nancy Mulane.

We’d like to thank Life of the Law for their editorial support, Dan Reist for academic mentorship, Josh GD for editorial input, as well as Lauryn Rohde and Jenn Luu for research and marketing help.

Dakota Koop is our graphic designer. Our production manager is David Tobiasz, and executive producers are Gordon Katic and Sam Fenn.

Cited is produced out of the Centre of Ethics at the University of Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. Cited is also produced out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia — that’s on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

The post The Heroin Clinic (Rebroadcast) appeared first on Cited Podcast.

On a daily basis, we are exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals. This is no accident; it is by design. They are everywhere – coating our consumer products, in our food packaging, being dumped into our lakes and sewers, and in countless other places. However, for the most part, regulators say that we need not worry.

That assessment is based on a simple 500-year-old adage, “the dose makes the poison.” The logic is simple: anything is poisonous, depending on how large a dose.  Dosing yourself with a minuscule amount of lead will cause no harm; while drinking an enormous amount of water will kill you. Regulators then try to find safe exposure levels for these chemicals—and they assume a simple, direct relationship (less is fine, more is worse). So, no matter how toxic the chemical, you only need to worry if it passes a certain exposure threshold.

However, what if their approach is all wrong? A revolutionary group of scientists are challenging this 500-year-old paradigm. They argue that some chemicals behave in erratic and unpredictable ways, and they can mess with us even at minuscule doses. If they’re right, then the chemicals around us are causing irreparable harm, and everything must change. We sort out this battle of paradigms through the lens of one of their most-hated chemicals, BPA.

———-CREDITS———-

This episode was produced by Irina Zhorov. Editing from Acey Rowe and Gordon Katic. Franklynn Bartol was our research assistant, with fact checking from Polly Leger.

Our theme song and original music is by our composer, Mike Barber. Dakota Koop is our graphic designer. Our production manager is David Tobiasz, and executive producers are Gordon Katic and Sam Fenn.

Special thanks to the scientists who helped us understand this story, including: Laura Vandenberg, Daniel Dietrich, Rich Giovane and Savannah Johnson.

This episode was funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. It’s part of a larger project that examines the roles of values in science, lead by Professor Gunilla Oberg at the University of British Columbia. Professor Oberg also provided research guidance to the project, though this episode does not necessarily reflect the view of Professor Oberg or her project

Cited is produced out of the Centre of Ethics at the University of Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. Cited is also produced out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia — that’s on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

The post #7: The Poison Paradigm appeared first on Cited Podcast.

Medical experts are rushing to see which drugs might help treat COVID-19. There are dozens of candidates: Remdesivir, Hydroxycloroquin, Actemra, Kevzara, Favipiravir, the list goes on. They better pick the right one; because billions of dollars of public money is at stake, not to mention 100s of thousands — if not millions — of lives. 

We don’t know what will happen with COVID-19 drug research. But the story of past pandemics might give us a clue. To prepare for Swine Flu and Bird Flu, governments spent billions stockpiling a drug called Tamiflu. You’d think governments used the best evidence-based advice, but the story of Tamiflu raises questions about how money shaped the process.  

On this episode, we open up the black box of pharmaceutical and public health expertise. We tell the story of a drug, from its days as middling flu treatment through its meteoric rise to international blockbuster.  How do experts decide what makes a good drug, and how do pharmaceutical companies make billions from pandemic panic?

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This episode has loads more information, citations, and resources. You can also find related articles on our website, citedpodcast.com. Including articles by our research assistant, Franklynn Bartol, on topics like: industry funding of patient advocacy groups, the meaning (and limitations) of ‘evidence-based medicine,’ and the broader research literature on industry funding and why it’s a problem. 

———-CORRECTION———-

An earlier version of this podcast said that drug companies now must publish all their trial data before a drug goes to market. In fact, the FDA requires that the companies must register their trial data on a government website, ClinicalTrials.gov. This excludes non-randomized observational trials and a few other earlier, prospective studies. The script was changed to reflect that correction.

———-CREDITS———-

This episode was produced by Audrey Quinn and Gordon Katic. Editing from Acey Rowe and Gordon Katic. Franklynn Bartol was our research assistant, with fact checking from Aurora Tejeida and Polly Leger. Dr. Joel Lexchin and Professor Sergio Sismondo provided research guidance.

Our theme song and original music is by our composer, Mike Barber. Dakota Koop is our graphic designer. Our production manager is David Tobiasz, and executive producers are Gordon Katic and Sam Fenn.

Thanks to Hannah Arbour for Japanese translation, and Shungo Kano for voicing.

This episode was funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This is part of wider project looking at trends in pharmaceutical research and policy. Dr. Joel Lexchin at the University of Toronto and Professor Sergio Sismondo at Queens University in Kingston are the research advisors on that project.

Cited is produced out of the Centre of Ethics at the University of Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. Cited is also produced out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia — that’s on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

The post #6: The Tamiflu Trials appeared first on Cited Podcast.