The Deadly Dose

This is the Mythbusters edition of TSIP because we are debunking a hot topic that is trending around the world: Ivermectin! Is it a horse medication? Can you use it for COVID-19? Does it turn you into a horse? Megan gives us all our A's to our Q's. 

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An epidemic of neonatal deformities swept across the globe throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s. Virtually healthy mothers were scratching their heads and begging for answers. Was it genetic? No. Environmental? No. It was something else - a miracle drug that promised expecting mothers a cure for every discomfort that could be experienced during their pregnancy. That drug was called Thalidomide and it was one of the biggest disasters in pharmaceutical history.

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1: Children from the thalidomide tragedy (via ABC News)

• Image 2: The R and S enantiomer structures of thalidomide that produce wildly different responses (via Wikipedia)

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21507989/

• https://www.understandinganimalresearch.org.uk/news/sixty-years-on-the-history-of-the-thalidomide-tragedy

• https://www.dana-farber.org/newsroom/news-releases/2018/after-60-years--scientists-uncover-how-thalidomide-produced-birth-defects/

• https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/sep/01/thalidomide-scandal-timeline

• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/health/thalidomide-survivors-usa.html

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There’s one poison out there that is so idyllic and covert in its mechanism of action that it has been deemed “the poisoner’s poison”. It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and takes weeks for a victim to become symptomatic, giving the culprit ample time to distance themselves from the scene of the crime. Even then, its effects mimic countless diseases and even other poisons. Its name? Thallium. And the best way to introduce this notorious poison is by way of Graham Young, aka the Teacup Poisoner, whose secret ingredient for every cuppa he served was just a dash of this insidious heavy metal.

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1: mugshot of Graham Young after his final arrest for murdering two colleagues and poisoning many more.

• Image 2: A teenaged Graham Young being escorted to Broadmoor Hospital.

• The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison by John Emsley.

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Mormons, murder, forensic analysis, forgery, and an art heist are all wrapped up in this one gripping story. Harini tells the story of Mark Hoffman, an expert forger whose increasing ambitions and heightened schemes lead to the murders of two of his fellow Latter Day Saints members. What does this have to do with science? Mark Hoffman's M.O. was explosives and there is a surprising medical history behind dynamite. 

Episode Sources:

• Image 1: The bombing of Mark Hoffman’s car and what tipped off this entire investigation (via Murderpedia)

• Image 2: Mark Hoffman and one of his “rare books” (via Oxygen)

• Murder among the Mormons (Netflix)

• https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/nitroglycerine-and-dynamite/#:~:text=Nitroglycerine%20is%20an%20explosive%20liquid,of%20nitric%20and%20sulphuric%20acid.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamite

• https://www.heartandstroke.ca/heart-disease/treatments/medications/nitroglycerin

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Remember that one time you ordered from your favorite Indian joint down the road and you got a creamy, delicious, mango lassi? Well, this story is exactly like that. Except it takes place in Pakistan, there’s an arranged marriage, and the lassi is spiked with poison. In honor of Harini’s upcoming wedding, Megan tells the story of a defiant bride whose plot to poison her betrothed goes drastically awry when the whole wedding party falls ill due to a tampered batch of lassi.

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1: A tray of lassi, similar to the batch that Aasia Bibi laced with rat poison before her arranged wedding to her cousin.

• Image 2: Aasia Bibi and her alleged boyfriend Muhammad Shahid (in the black hood) after their arrest.

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/02/pakistani-bride-kills-17-people-with-poison-milk-to-escape-arranged-marriage/

• https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/02/561589498/pakistani-bride-charged-with-poisoning-husbands-milk-inadvertently-killing-17

• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/world/asia/pakistan-newlywed-poison.html

• https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41816049

• https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-middle-east-international-news-asia-pacific-arrests-62ed09dce0744f7380b0ef61c28fa0b3

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The Olympics are happening at the time of this recording, so of course we found you, poison pals, an Olympic poisoning. Yea, you heard that right. Jump in the water with us, because we're diving straight into this episode. Harini takes us back to the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, California, where a young Olympic swimmer, Zus Braun, gets mysteriously ill during her qualifying race. She feels a sharp prick on her leg and when she gets out of the water, she sees two American men exit the stadium. What or who is the culprit? Oh, we can't give it all away so fast! Listen in poison pals - on your marks, get set, GO.

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1 Zus Braun, Gold medal Olympic Swimmer from the 1930s (via Wikipedia)

• https://www.sbnation.com/secret-base/22291303/zus-braun-eleanor-holm-1932-olympic-swimming

• http://isoh.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/90.pdf

• https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/49375

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In this episode, Megan debunks the mythologies surrounding a very sultry poison. Beloved as an innuendo in sitcoms and raunchy comedies, cantharidin, aka Spanish Fly, has gained a reputation as an aphrodisiac/love potion. Be warned: Spanish Fly, a misnomer, is actually derived from the blister beetle. Can you guess why it’s called the blister beetle? Let’s just say that using Spanish Fly as an aphrodisiac has a low chance of spicing up your love life, but a very high chance of spicing up your insides…to the point of internal organ damage. Mutilated genitals anyone?

In this episode:

Spanish Fly Cocktail Recipe:

• 1 oz tequila (Jose Cuerva)
• 1 oz rum (Bacardi 151)
• 1 oz Kahula 
• Rich black coffee (as much as your heart desires)
• Whipped cream (as much as your heart desires)
• Cherry on top! 

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1: Blister beetles are beetles of the family Meloidae, so called for their defensive secretion of a blistering agent, cantharidin.

• Image 2: An advertisement for Spanish Fly as an aphrodisiac.

• Image 3: A fresco depicting Greek fertility god, Priapus, the inspiration for the medical term “priapism”. If you’d like to see the un-blurred version, search “Priapism” on wikipedia.

• https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle/478535

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4432444/

• Whitman, D. et al. (2019) Antiparasitic Properties of Cantharidin and the Blister Beetle Berberomeloe majalis (Coleoptera: Meloidae). Toxins

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You're on vacation in the Scottish Highlands in a picturesque castle-turned-inn with a view of the rolling green hills and many lochs that hold many a secret beneath its surface. But, the biggest secret of 1920s Scotland happened at the hotel Loch Maree. One by one...they all fell sick...one by one...until there were none. The culprit of this story is: botulinum 

In this episode:

• Sherlock (Netflix) 

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1: Hotel Loch Maree in Scotland (via Atlas Obscura)

• Image 2: The effect of botulism that can come from canned goods (via The Vintage News)

• https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-botulism-case

• https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/past-times/3906333/loch-maree-botulism/

• https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/07/12/botulism-in-1922/

• https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism

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In this episode, Megan takes us back to the 1800s where literally anything goes, for example, lots and lots of murder by poison! (Is the 1800s the metaphorical equivalent of the 70’s?) Megan tells us the suspiciously sweet story of Christiana Edmunds, aka the Chocolate Cream Poisoner. This episode is a friendly reminder that you should always vet a mysterious box of sweet treats before digging in. If there’s no sender, you might just be biting into a strychnine ganache.

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1: A courtroom sketch of Christiana Edmunds captioned “At the Bar of the Old Bailey, convicted of Poisoning at Brighton.”

• https://murderpedia.org/female.E/e/edmunds-christiana.htm

• https://inchem.org/documents/pims/chemical/pim507.htm

• https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/strychnine/basics/facts.asp

• https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/emergencyresponsecard_29750018.html

• https://journals.lww.com/jfmpc/Fulltext/2017/06030/A_rare_case_report_of_Strychnos_nux_vomica.42.aspx

• https://womenshistorynetwork.org/the-case-of-the-chocolate-cream-killer-the-poisonous-passion-of-christiana-edmunds/

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Codebreaking, computers, and chemicals are what this episode is all about. In honor of Pride month (episode recorded in June), Harini tells the story of the genius mathematician and brilliant cryptologist, Alan Turing, who effectively helped end WWII. Unfortunately, at the time, being gay was a criminal offense with a very toxic punishment. For the vast majority of our lives, the stories of the LGBTQ+ community have been quieted or silenced altogether. Let's do our part to shout their stories from the rooftops now.

In this episode:

• The Imitation Game (movie)

• Bletchley Circle (TV show) on Netflix

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Episode Sources:

• Image 1: Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician, and cryptologist, AND gay during a time when that was absolutely forbidden (via Britannica)

• Image 2: Alan Turing working on the “Turing Machine” which cracked the Nazi U-submarine codes to effectively end the war (via Phys.org)

• Image 3: The Turing Machine a.k.a the first computer (via Sutori)

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

• https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/obituaries/alan-turing-overlooked.html

• https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/8-things-didnt-know-alan-turing

• https://www.turing.org.uk/

• https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-alan-turing-cracked-the-enigma-code

• https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18419691

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