Joe Rogan Experience #2360 - Caroline Fraser

1. 0:00 – 2:05

   Murderland’s core thesis: serial killers and the Northwest’s lead legacy

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drum music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rhythmical rock music plays) Thanks for doing this.

   2. CFCaroline Fraser0:13

      Thank you for having me.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      So I read about the premise of your book online, and immediately I'm like, "I gotta talk to this lady."

   4. CFCaroline Fraser0:21

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      "That sounds crazy." Um, please tell people what the premise is, just so we can get started with this.

   6. CFCaroline Fraser0:28

      Yeah, well, I started thinking about this a long time ago, um-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:32

      The book's called Murderland.

   8. CFCaroline Fraser0:33

      Yeah, the- the book is Murderland, and, um, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s around the time when there were a lot of, you know, serial killers beginning to pop up. And there always had been this question, why are there so many serial killers in the Pacific Northwest? And so that was the question I was really thinking about, and the- the premise, as it emerged from the research that I did and from some of the facts that I learned about what was happening in the Northwest in this run up to the 1970s is that, um, there may be a connection between, uh, the lead pollution, um, that was prevalent, uh, in the area because of smelters and leaded gas and serial killers. Um, because lead, of course, as we, I think, most people now know has a connection to a heightened aggression and violence in the people who've been exposed to it. So that was, you know, what emerged to me, uh, gradually over the years. I mean, I didn't know a lot about this when I started. Um, I knew about the serial killers, but I didn't really know about the whole lead story, and

2. 2:05 – 6:35

   The real-estate clue that launched the investigation: Vashon Island and “arsenic remediation”

   1. CFCaroline Fraser2:05

      that came about, you know, I learned about it in part because of some murders. (laughs) I mean, I live in, uh, Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is a lovely place. Um, unfortunately, New Mexico has a high rate of homicides, um, in part it's because it's a poor state, and, uh, doesn't have a big tax base and has, you know, some issues with, uh, drug and alcohol addiction. And few years ago, maybe 2008 or something like that, um, some people, couple of people were murdered down the street from me, and I live in a very peaceful neighborhood, (laughs) you know, very... Um, and that was something that really made me start thinking about, um, the issue of maybe, you know, it might be a good idea to think of moving back to the Pacific Northwest, (laughs) um, uh, which I wanted to do anyway, because I have family up there and... Um, and a few years later, because of that, I was up in the Northwest and looking at real estate ads, and at this point I didn't really know anything about the smelter or the, um, the lead issues. But I was looking at property on Vashon Island, which if you know anything about the Pacific Northwest, is in Puget Sound, it's right across from West Seattle, beautiful little, uh, it was quite rural when I was growing up there, beautiful place. And I came across a real estate ad that said... And this is just for undeveloped property, and it said, "Arsenic remediation may be necessary." And I thought, "Wow, w- what (laughs) , what could possibly have caused so much arsenic pollution on Vashon Island that you would have to get it remediated?" I mean, that just seemed crazy to me. And I was so curious about that, and I looked it up online and, you know, within minutes discovered that there had been, uh, an infamous lead and copper smelter in the City of Tacoma, which is just south of Vashon Island, and so Vashon received a lot of the pollution from that smelter. And so that began a whole process of- of kind of learning about what happened here, you know, what happened in this region. And I also knew, uh, because I'm sort of really interested in serial killers, (laughs) as I mentioned, and had been for- for a long time, reading about them and reading about Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway, um, and I knew that both Bundy and Gary Ridgway, who was the Green River killer, um, had grown up in Tacoma at the same time that the smelter is... You know, the smelter had been operated- operating there since the 1880s, 1890s, so for a very long time. And I could see that a lot of, uh, news media had been devoted to looking at what had happened in this- in this region, you know? There was a wh- whole map, a GIS map, geographic, you know, information systems that allowed you to look up individual houses...... you know, residential homes in Tacoma and see how much arsenic and lead pollution was in the yards. So I discovered (laughs) that you could actually look up the house where Ted Bundy grew up and see how much lead was in his front yard and his backyard. And the more I read about lead pollution and lead, uh, the association with aggression and violence, the more I wondered, is there a story to be told here about this issue?

3. 6:35 – 8:44

   Lead exposure beyond serial killers: IQ, ADHD, delinquency, and violent-crime trends

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:35

      So this, this i- issue of lead pollution, is it just serial killers or is there an elevated amount of violent crime that goes along with it?

   2. CFCaroline Fraser6:47

      Yeah. The, the issue of serial killers is one that I kind of introduced as a, you know, the most extreme example.

   3. JRJoe Rogan6:58

      Right.

   4. CFCaroline Fraser6:58

      But most, most of the research that's been done has focused on, um, aggression, juvenile delinquency, for example. There are long-term studies that look at kids who were exposed to lead, um, including in relatively small amounts, um, and then what happens to them later, um, you know, by the time they're, you know, teenagers or young adults. And they have shown a very strong association with, um, you know, problems with learning, uh, ADHD, uh, and, and as I said, delinquency and, and crime.

   5. JRJoe Rogan7:45

      And would... They've even shown that in places that don't have smelters, where people are just dealing with leaded gasoline that was used up until the 1990s, right?

   6. CFCaroline Fraser7:55

      That's right. Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:56

      They had decrease in IQ, uh, a lot of factors that they can directly tie into just the lead from gasoline, which is significantly less than I would assume you'd get from a large-scale smelting operation.

   8. CFCaroline Fraser8:13

      Yeah. And the, the leaded gas is particularly tragic because that was essentially a kind of (laughs) um, horrific experiment that was conducted on generations of kids in this country.

   9. JRJoe Rogan8:29

      Yeah.

   10. CFCaroline Fraser8:29

       Um, and adults, because everybody was exposed to that.

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:34

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CFCaroline Fraser8:35

       Um, obviously some people more than others. If you lived next to a major highway or something like that, you're getting more of it than-

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:44

       Yeah.

4. 8:44 – 11:42

   How leaded gasoline happened: corporate knowledge, patent incentives, and moral collapse

   1. CFCaroline Fraser8:44

      ... um, than if you maybe lived somewhere else. Although I think rural people were also exposed, um, because of the kinds of machinery and stuff that's used, uh, on farms and, and so forth. So it was, it was a terrible idea, and they knew that at the time, you know, the companies, the corporations, the people who introduced it, uh, Standard Oil, DuPont, et cetera. Um, they knew the dangers of this. They were told by medical doctors (laughs) -

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:21

      Really?

   3. CFCaroline Fraser9:21

      ... who said... Yeah. Uh, who said, "This will expose everybody to, you know, more lead than, than human beings have ever had to deal with before."

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:34

      Wow.

   5. CFCaroline Fraser9:35

      And-

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:35

      And they just did it to stop the engines from knocking?

   7. CFCaroline Fraser9:39

      They did, and apparently there were alternatives, but the alternatives, which were s- like ethanol, um, were not something that could be patented.

   8. JRJoe Rogan9:50

      Oh.

   9. CFCaroline Fraser9:50

      And (laughs) were not, uh, products-

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:53

       Wow.

   11. CFCaroline Fraser9:53

       ... that you could make money off of. And so-

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:56

       Oh.

   13. CFCaroline Fraser9:57

       ... all these corporations chose-

   14. JRJoe Rogan9:59

       God.

   15. CFCaroline Fraser9:59

       ... to do this.

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:01

       Oh, God.

   17. CFCaroline Fraser10:03

       Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really almost unreal to think about the m- the moral (laughs) failure that this... I mean, failure doesn't even seem strong enough.

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:15

       It doesn't. It's so evil. It's so strange how many times that that has happened in, in human history and in fairly recent history, where companies know what they're putting out or what they're releasing or what they're prescribing or whatever it is is going to damage people, and they know that short term, they can make a lot of money, and so they do it anyway.

   19. CFCaroline Fraser10:37

       Yeah. And they did for, for decades because-

   20. JRJoe Rogan10:40

       (sighs)

   21. CFCaroline Fraser10:40

       ... you know, this began in the, in the '20s and '30s.

   22. JRJoe Rogan10:43

       So we can assume that the smelting thing, they probably didn't know, correct? Like, as, as... At least in the 1800s.

   23. CFCaroline Fraser10:53

       Yeah. In the, in the 1800s, they probably weren't thinking about stuff like that. They didn't have data on it, but by the time the companies really got up and running and... And the, uh, smelter in Tacoma was owned by a company called ASARCO, which was the American Smelting and Refining Company, um, owned by the Guggenheim family.

   24. JRJoe Rogan11:18

       Oh, boy.

   25. CFCaroline Fraser11:19

       And-

   26. JRJoe Rogan11:20

       But they've done so much for art. (laughs)

   27. CFCaroline Fraser11:22

       (laughs) Yeah. I mean, that, it's just-

   28. JRJoe Rogan11:26

       That's what they like to do.

   29. CFCaroline Fraser11:28

       Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a total-

   30. JRJoe Rogan11:30

       Whitewashing.
5. 11:42 – 14:37

   Reputation laundering: from the Nobel Prize to Thomas Midgley’s toxic inventions

   1. JRJoe Rogan11:42

      It's so dark. Um, my friend Peter Berg, uh, explained to me the, um, origins of the Nobel Prize. Did you know the origins of the Nobel Prize?

   2. CFCaroline Fraser11:53

      It has something to do with, with explosives, right?

   3. JRJoe Rogan11:56

      Yes. The, the gentleman who the Nobel Prize is named after, um, they erroneously reported that he was dead in the newspaper and, uh, they called him the Merchant of Death in th- the newspaper and he went like, "Oh my God, this is what people think about me?" Because he invented dynamite. And so he's like, "I've got to do something to clean up my reputation." So he devised this strategy of awarding this prestigious award named after him to all the great scientists and Nobel Peace Prize and all these different things. So now when people hear the term Nobel, like, "Oh, he's a Nobel laureate. Oh, he's, he's a Nobel Prize winner."

   4. CFCaroline Fraser12:35

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan12:35

      And that's the origin of it. He- it was just a whitewashing operation.

   6. CFCaroline Fraser12:40

      Yeah. I mean, the s- the same thing happened with the guy who invented the leaded gas formula, Thomas Midgley, um, who was really a terrible guy. (laughs) I mean, he invented the, the leaded gas stuff. He also invented chlorofluorocarbons, you know, the stuff in, um, refrigerants that cause the-

   7. JRJoe Rogan13:06

      Ozone layer hole?

   8. CFCaroline Fraser13:07

      ... the hole in the ozone layer. (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan13:08

      Oh, terrific.

   10. CFCaroline Fraser13:09

       So, like, two of the most devastating discoveries, scientific discoveries (laughs) in the 20th century are down to this guy and he was awarded the, you know, highest medal from the, um, you know, American Chemistry Association, which he still holds. I mean-

   11. JRJoe Rogan13:29

       Ugh.

   12. CFCaroline Fraser13:30

       ... even though he... He became really ill, um, as a result, I think, of working with this, um, uh, tetro-... You know, tetraethyl, it's called, the, the substance that was added to, to leaded gas. And, uh, he, you know, went to Florida to try and heal himself (laughs) o- of this, which I don't think you can do. I mean, I, I don't think going to Florida heals, uh-

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:01

       (laughs)

   14. CFCaroline Fraser14:02

       ... lead exposure. But he... Yes, and he developed something which was called polio. You know, he became, um, you know, unable to walk and he invented this whole bizarre kind of, um, system of pulleys that he could use to, to, uh, lift himself out of bed and eventually, he strangled, uh, to death in this, um, sort of harness thing.

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:30

       Oh, no.

   16. CFCaroline Fraser14:30

       Uh, which the... It may have been suicide, it may have been an accident. Um, kind of unclear.

6. 14:37 – 17:50

   Why women consume true crime—and Fraser’s Bundy-era childhood proximity to fear

   1. JRJoe Rogan14:37

      Wow. So when you first started investigating this, was your interest in serial killers? Y- you always had an interest in serial killers, which is always weird to me how many women are interested in serial killers. Like, all of the top true crime podcasts, uh, if you look at their demographics, it's- a large chunk of it is women. And I know the women in my house, uh, love to watch those true crime shows and those serial killer m- which I... That disturbs the shit out of me. Like, m- my family was watching something on, uh, The Night Stalker on Richard Ramirez and, uh, I'm like, "I can't watch this. I can't wa-... I get sick. I get sick and I can't watch it." They're, like, fascinated. Like, why is that? Why do you think women are so interested? I'm not, like, lumping you in with all women, but there is a weird thing with women and true crime podcasts.

   2. CFCaroline Fraser15:29

      Yeah. I think that that has to do with the fact that women deal with fear. You know, fear of... Um, and it may be very, you know, nebulous, it may be kind of unclear what... You know, but a lot of women have just had the experience of being afraid walking alone at night or-

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:51

      Mm.

   4. CFCaroline Fraser15:51

      ... walking through a parking lot or... You know, or they've had direct experience of, you know, some kind of, of male violence or aggression, you know, at home, domestic violence. So I think there's a whole gamut of experiences that women, uh, have had, uh, to one extent or another that feed into that. And for me, it was growing up, you know, just a couple of miles from the places where Ted Bundy began abducting women in the summer of, you know, the, the winter and summer of 1974 and everybody knew there was somebody out there. This is at a time when the term serial killer wasn't even really in use yet. People didn't really understand the phenomenon. Um-

   5. JRJoe Rogan16:48

      Mm.

   6. CFCaroline Fraser16:48

      ... it was still kind of a- an unusual, um, thing and, and this, this was happening, you know, women were disappearing from dorm rooms or their rooms at University of Washington, they were disappearing off the street, uh, and then they weren't seen again for weeks, for months. You know, in the... July of 1974, I was 13 and on a really hot, you know, Sunday afternoon in 1974, two women disappeared from a crowded beach at Lake Sammamish, which was about, you know, 10 minutes from my house. And so having had that experience of, of being around at that time, it was incredibly, you know... It was, it was both really disturbing, but also I just really wanted to understand what was happening.

7. 17:50 – 23:30

   Bundy’s origin story and early suspects: Ann Rule, third-person confessions, and the 1961 Burr case

   1. JRJoe Rogan17:50

      So did you plan on writing a book about serial killers or was this understanding of the lead and the arsenic what led you...... down to write this book?

   2. CFCaroline Fraser18:04

      Yeah, I never really wanted to write a book that was just about serial killers. I mean, I think that's been done, you know? (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:11

      Right.

   4. CFCaroline Fraser18:11

      And lots of people have, have done that and done a good job, you know? I mean, Ann Rule, the woman who wrote the first, uh, book about Ted Bundy, who knew Ted Bundy.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:22

      Oh, she knew him?

   6. CFCaroline Fraser18:22

      Yes. She, she worked with him, uh, at a rape crisis clinic-

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:28

      Oh my God.

   8. CFCaroline Fraser18:28

      ... in Seattle. Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan18:30

      He worked at a rape crisis clinic. Wow.

   10. CFCaroline Fraser18:33

       Yeah. He, he was very interested in doing research on rape. (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan18:37

       Wow.

   12. CFCaroline Fraser18:37

       Because, of course, he was something of an expert, so yeah, yeah, that was why that book was such a phenomenon because she knew him before anybody had identified, you know, anything in him. She liked him. She was friends with him.

   13. JRJoe Rogan18:55

       Wow.

   14. CFCaroline Fraser18:56

       She gave him, you know, a ride to the Christmas party. (laughs) She-

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:00

       Oh my God.

   16. CFCaroline Fraser19:02

       Yeah, and-

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:02

       Was this while he was killing or before he started?

   18. CFCaroline Fraser19:06

       Well-

   19. JRJoe Rogan19:07

       Is it known?

   20. CFCaroline Fraser19:07

       ... the thing that we don't really know about Ted Bundy is when he started killing. He would never answer that question, and one of the cases that I talk about that really is part of what made me want to write this book is, is a case, um, of an eight-year-old girl who was abducted in Tacoma in, uh, 1961, in August of 1961, Ann, Ann Marie Burr, and he was 14 at that time, and, uh, he is now one of the principal subs- suspects, I think, uh, behind her abduction.

   21. JRJoe Rogan19:47

       Oh, wow.

   22. CFCaroline Fraser19:47

       So that may have been his first-

   23. JRJoe Rogan19:50

       14?

   24. CFCaroline Fraser19:50

       ... uh, murder.

   25. JRJoe Rogan19:52

       Wow.

   26. CFCaroline Fraser19:52

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan19:56

       Was there, like, a history of him torturing animals or anything along those lines?

   28. CFCaroline Fraser20:03

       Um, no, but, but one of the things that I think the FBI was discovering when they started doing all this, you know, investigation of, of the pasts, you know, the childhood of serial killers was that this starts really young, that the fantasies and the obsessions, um, with, you know, I mean, some of, some of them famously do, um, torture or kill-

   29. JRJoe Rogan20:31

       Right.

   30. CFCaroline Fraser20:31

       ... the family pets and-
8. 23:30 – 26:43

   Is the Northwest an outlier? 1974’s cluster of active killers and the broader crime surge

   1. JRJoe Rogan23:30

      So when you saw this real estate and you found out that it needed to have arsenic removed from it, this began this sort of journey that you went on to try to connect this area with serial killers and, and, and toxins, and what did you find? Like, is there a disproportionate number of serial killers that come from that particular area?

   2. CFCaroline Fraser23:57

      Yeah, there really are, as I discovered, a, a really kind of extraordinary number, and it's hard to talk about these numbers simply because we don't know-... what a normal number of serial killers (laughs) in a given population.

   3. JRJoe Rogan24:13

      And is some of them not get caught? So are there, like, undiscovered serial killers that are in that area or maybe deaths that are attributed to unknown people?

   4. CFCaroline Fraser24:22

      There are several cases that have never been resolved. Um, you know, there's something called the Dismemberment Murders (laughs) that, you know-

   5. JRJoe Rogan24:32

      Dismemberment Murders?

   6. CFCaroline Fraser24:33

      Yeah. Up in ip- up in the ner- Northwest where, you know, various feet and things were found washing up onshore and nobody could figure out who they belonged to and-

   7. JRJoe Rogan24:44

      Oh, I remember that.

   8. CFCaroline Fraser24:46

      Um-

   9. JRJoe Rogan24:46

      That was fairly recently, right? Am I thinking of the same thing?

   10. CFCaroline Fraser24:50

       It, it may be another thing that you're thinking of, (laughs) but I think this dates back-

   11. JRJoe Rogan24:55

       Yeah. There's another thing. It was, like, shoes that had a human foot in it.

   12. CFCaroline Fraser24:59

       And they could've just been, you know, bodies of people who-

   13. JRJoe Rogan25:04

       Drowned.

   14. CFCaroline Fraser25:05

       ... who drowned, um, because that's, I think, what happens, um, in some cases. So, I think that's a, a sort of question mark. There are a couple of others. Um, there's one in Idaho that they've never, um, solved, so there are those cases. But even aside from those, I mean, I've spent a lot of time looking at the year 1974, um, because it seemed really active in terms of, uh, what was happening with serial killers around the country and in, in the Northwest. And it was the- famously the year when, when Bundy really kind of broke free of any restraints he might have once had and, and began, uh, abducting, uh, women basically kind of, like, once a month, um, during that year. And in 1974, I found at least six active serial killers in Seattle or along the I-5 corridor who were all kinda working at the same time.

   15. JRJoe Rogan26:11

       Wow.

   16. CFCaroline Fraser26:11

       And that seems like a lot to me. Um, and just looking at Tacoma, uh, the rate of violent crime really skyrocketed, uh, in 1974, um, and in the mi- mid-'70s. It's just started going up and up and up, uh, and you see this, uh, unfortunately across the country. The vi- rate of violent crime in the '70s and '80s rose to heights that had not been seen before-

   17. JRJoe Rogan26:42

       And is-

   18. CFCaroline Fraser26:42

       ... in this country.

9. 26:43 – 29:42

   Why the 1970s? Demographics, social turmoil, and heavy-metal/toxin exposure in the air

   1. JRJoe Rogan26:43

      ... are there other factors? So there's leaded gasoline, which is a major factor. Um, but what other factors do you think in terms of, like, environmental toxins and things, like, why 1974?

   2. CFCaroline Fraser26:58

      Well, there are various theories that have been put forth. I mean, people have pointed out that in the mid-'70s was when the baby boom generation, which was, you know, large (laughs) in terms of, of its, um, uh, population density, that those people, uh, had started to kind of come of age. They'd, they'd entered the period when you're most likely to commit crimes, which is your 20s, um, or 30s. And so there was that. There was a lot of economic uncertainty. There was a recession. Nixon, you know, was in the White House early on in the '70s. There was the Vietnam War. There had been a lot of, uh, violence during the, the '60s. Um, and so people point to those factors, uh, as contributing to this as well. Um, but I think also, you know, based on the, the science that's being done, you do need to look at, at the toxins that were, um, becoming really, really prevalent. The lead, uh, cadmium is another heavy metal that's very similar, um, to lead in the body in terms of its association with aggression. Um, zinc, manganese, all these things were being-

   3. JRJoe Rogan28:21

      Zinc?

   4. CFCaroline Fraser28:22

      Yeah. A lot of-

   5. JRJoe Rogan28:23

      Zinc is associated with aggression?

   6. CFCaroline Fraser28:25

      I don't know that it's associated with aggression, but it's one of these things that was forming the, the, um, exposure to particu- particulate pollution, which is now associated with all kinds of, um, health problems, you know, heart problems. I mean, lead is a, is a toxin. It's a poison.

   7. JRJoe Rogan28:48

      Yeah.

   8. CFCaroline Fraser28:48

      And so you put it in the body and it becomes, you know, it's very, uh, uh, easy for that to reach your brain. Um, and what happens is that, you know, especially if you're exposed to a lot of the stuff, you can be sick in, in all kinds of ways. You can get health, uh, heart problems. Um, it's now been associated with, uh, various forms of dementia, Alzheimer's, um, uh, ALS. Um, so there's a lot of things that lead can cause, but they have shown statistically that the, um, increase in lead in the population, uh, in the air in the mid-'70s, um, really may have contributed to a rise in violent crime.

10. 29:42 – 42:01

    From WWII production to Superfund: how metals pollution became embedded and persistent

    1. JRJoe Rogan29:42

       What year did they start putting lead in gasoline?

    2. CFCaroline Fraser29:46

       Well, they invented the stuff in the 1920s, but, you know, just thinking back to those early decades, not that many people had cars.

    3. JRJoe Rogan29:55

       Right.

    4. CFCaroline Fraser29:55

       You know, and there was a big depression, of course, in the 1930s. So there's not a lot of driving, uh, happening in terms of the, the, what we see now.

    5. JRJoe Rogan30:06

       The vol-

    6. CFCaroline Fraser30:06

       I mean, yeah, the, the, it just wasn't as, as big of a deal, um...It was, you know, rare to have one car, m- much less, you know, two or, or three, and then during the war you had ... I mean, the war, World War II is really interesting to look at in terms of lead because I have a sort of little chapter about this because during World War II, gasoline, of course, was rationed. You know, they needed all of it for the war effort. But the war effort itself, um, raised the amount of metals, all these metals. Lead, copper, uh, et cetera were needed so intensively for the war that they began to be produced more than at any other time in world history. And so, the pollution from that, you know, from producing all these, you know, tanks and vehicles and planes and everything that they needed, uh, (laughs) was really b- going to form the basis of what would become the Superfund program because a lot of the Superfund sites in this country can be traced back to World War II, and so that's when a lot of the stuff started entering, um, the environment. Uh, and once it's there, it's really hard to get rid of it. I mean, that's the problem with lead. It doesn't wash away. It doesn't go anywhere. It just hangs around and, uh, becomes, you know, part of our (laughs) environment. It becomes dust that is, you know, in people's houses or their attics, um, and, and that, I think, is what people eventually started, you know, eh, when p- when after the war, people started driving lots and, lots more, you know, in the '50s and '60s, uh, this country particularly was, um, doing (laughs) really well economically and everybody was buying cars and driving them for the first time, um, you know, en masse. And so-

    7. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       In, in history. In human history.

    8. CFCaroline Fraser32:22

       That's right.

    9. JRJoe Rogan32:23

       Yeah.

    10. CFCaroline Fraser32:23

        And so, it really becomes, I think, a, a heavy, um, pollutant around that time, and so by the '70s, the kids who had been, you know, born in the '50s, they're starting to show the effects of lead poisoning.

    11. JRJoe Rogan32:40

        Mm. I have a friend who, uh, briefly lived in Brooklyn and, uh, he had a very small backyard that he was gonna try to grow some plants in, grow, grow a small garden, um, but he, uh, did some soil samples, he's a very, very intelligent guy, did some soil samples and sent it to a university to get it tested and it was just filled with lead, and he was like, "What is this all about?" And they were like, "It's all from leaded gasoline." So this was in the 2000s, so I think this was around 2012, 2013, and they had told him there's, uh, a few things that you could do. There's certain plants that you could grow that would remove some of it from the soil other than completely excavating and replacing it with fresh soil, but his whole backyard was essentially lead poisoned.

    12. CFCaroline Fraser33:28

        Yeah, it's, um-

    13. JRJoe Rogan33:30

        "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler." (laughs) Join a car sharing club today. That was during the r- the gas rationing days. Some of these are crazy. That one's the craziest one but ... "Have you really tried to save gas by getting into a gas club? They do it, so can we." Oh, clown cars? What is that? A wagon? Uh, sorta, yeah. What is that? It's a bunch of soldiers in the back. Soldiers. Oh, okay. Wow. So they were just, this was all just about gas rationing. Wow. Save fuel to make munitions for the battle. Wow. "The daughter who heaped on the coal." Wow, they're mad at her. Look at her. (laughs) Oh, no, I'm trying to stay warm and stay alive. (laughs) Wow. So, um, is there an uptick in violence in these areas where they were, um, m- making stuff for the war effort where they would be polluting the area? This is an ad for BetterHelp. The internet is a breeding ground for misinformation. Even a simple search for ways to get rid of a headache can produce millions and millions of results from taking pain relievers, to detoxes, to medication, to cold compresses. It's overwhelming, and even when you do find something that's true that works for other people, it might not work for you. In some cases, it's better to just ask a living, breathing expert. If you have a headache that won't go away, go talk to a doctor, and if you're struggling with your mental health, consult a credentialed therapist. You can learn a lot about yourself in therapy like how to be kind to yourself, and how to be the best version of you, whether you wanna learn how to better manage stress, improve your relationships, gain more confidence, or something else, it starts with therapy. Try it for yourself with BetterHelp. Millions have benefited from their services and there's a reason people rate it so highly. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/jre. That's betterhelp.com/jre.

    14. CFCaroline Fraser35:57

        Yeah, I mean, you, you definitely see, you know, what happened in Tacoma is, is very well recorded now. Um, another city where this happened was El Paso, Texas because-

    15. JRJoe Rogan36:10

        Mm.

    16. CFCaroline Fraser36:11

        ... um, ASARCO had, uh, another major smelter, um-... in El Paso that had started in the 1890s and had been spewing this stuff out for decades. Uh, but all of the smelters during the war were kind of, um, they weren't taken over by the government, but the government introduced all kinds of, you know, price fixing and, and so forth to, to make it, um, not possible for these companies to raise prices, um, astronomically, and, and, and a lot of the stuff was requisitioned for the war effort. So in El Paso, by the 1970s, they were starting to discover that, um, this whole area around the smokestack of the smelter, uh, was heavily, uh, lead contaminated, um, and what I, (laughs) you know, disc- I thi- I thought, "Well, El Paso, that's interesting," but there were no serial killers in El Paso and so I Googled that and, like, you know, within a minute I discover that Richard Ramirez, The Night Stalker, um, grew up in El Paso not very far from the smelter. And-

    17. JRJoe Rogan37:33

        Wow.

    18. CFCaroline Fraser37:33

        ... you know, we associate him now with Los Angeles because that's where he committed most of his murders, but he did not grow up there.

    19. JRJoe Rogan37:42

        Wow. So this association with, um, these chemicals and violence and ... So this is well-known, and is ... If you could look at a map of the areas where this is the biggest problem, is there also a correlation with, uh, an uptick in violent crime and an uptick in serial killers? Like, is it not just Pacific Northwest? Is it around El Paso as well?

    20. CFCaroline Fraser38:10

        Yeah, when you start looking up, okay, well, what's the crime rate, the violent crime rate in El Paso? And yes, that starts going up, um, in the 1970s, uh, and so there, there does seem to be an association with this. There's a guy named Rick Nevin who was, uh, who is an, an economist and social scientist and he put together, um, a paper about this that I n- uh, which was published online that includes about, you know, 45 graphs of all these different, um, uh, you know, sho- showing the rise in violent crime, the rise in teen pregnancies, the ... which is sort of how women come into it, the, the impulsivity, um, seems to have perhaps, uh, led to, uh, a real rise in teen pregnancies in the '70s and '80s, um, which'll ... You'll, you know, if you'll rem- remember, that was kind of a big thing then.

    21. JRJoe Rogan39:19

        Yeah.

    22. CFCaroline Fraser39:20

        Um, and is- and now.

    23. JRJoe Rogan39:21

        Is this also tied, is this also tied to the sexual revolution? I mean, and, and then also, when was birth control, like oral birth control introduced?

    24. CFCaroline Fraser39:31

        I think that was in the 1960s, early '60s that that first becomes available. I can't tell you exactly what year, um, but yeah, I mean, I'm sure that there is some-

    25. JRJoe Rogan39:45

        There's a bunch of other factors. It's not like we can pin everything on lead and arsenic that-

    26. CFCaroline Fraser39:50

        That's right.

    27. JRJoe Rogan39:51

        But there's contributing factors.

    28. CFCaroline Fraser39:52

        And, of course, people, you know, always point out, well, you know, not everybody in Tacoma and El Paso became a (laughs) serial killer-

    29. JRJoe Rogan40:00

        Right.

    30. CFCaroline Fraser40:00

        ... which, of course, is true. Um-
11. 42:01 – 50:10

    Smelters explained—and the Idaho horror story: Bunker Hill’s filter fire and valuing children’s lives

    1. CFCaroline Fraser42:01

       ... you know, it may be worth mentioning or describing what a smelter does for people, because I think people are not, um, familiar with that anymore. We don't have them, uh, in our cities, uh, anymore, but, you know, what these things were were these (laughs) giant, uh ... A primary smelter is to melt rock-You know, it was like taking the rocks from mines that were full of all these different metals, um, you know, including arsenic. This is where the arsenic came from. Um, but they were full of metals like, you know, lead and copper and silver and gold, and melting those rocks in these giant, uh, furnaces, and all of this put off an enormous amount of pollution, you know, particulate pollution that was going up the smokestack. And they were, you know, the companies that ran these things were keeping all the valuable metals that they could for themselves, you know, the silver and the copper and, and all of that, and so they did have filters on them. But one of the things that happened sometimes with these smelters is that they would kind of fail, or the filters would fail. There's this horrifying example in Idaho, uh, uh, it was a company called Bunker Hill that was one of the largest silver mines, I think in the world. Um, and they had a lead smelter in this town called Kellogg, which is right on I-90. If you've ever driven on I-90, you know, from Missoula, Montana or something like that to Seattle, you've driven through this place. And they built, you know, this, this giant, uh, smelter facility to, to handle all the stuff they were pulling out of the mines, and in 1973, they had a fire in their filtration, um, building that destroyed most of the filter, uh, that was try, you know, the thing that was supposed to keep lead from going up the smokestack. And there were kids in this town. There were, there was an elementary school right across the street from the smokestack.

    2. JRJoe Rogan44:26

       Jesus.

    3. CFCaroline Fraser44:27

       Yeah. (laughs) And, and the descriptions of that school are so horrifying because the teachers used to think that sometimes that the, um, that the facility had caught fire because there was so much smoke.

    4. JRJoe Rogan44:41

       Oh, God.

    5. CFCaroline Fraser44:42

       Um, but in fact it wasn't, there wasn't, you know, it was just what the smokestack was putting out.

    6. JRJoe Rogan44:49

       Whoa.

    7. CFCaroline Fraser44:49

       But after that filter failed, um, that company, which was owned by Gulf and Western at the time, um, did a kind of back-of-the-napkin calculation of what those kids' lives were worth, because they felt like, "Okay, we're gonna get sued if we keep running the plant without filtration, but is that really gonna matter? Because these kids' lives are probably only worth about $11 million apiece."

    8. JRJoe Rogan45:21

       Oh, my God.

    9. CFCaroline Fraser45:21

       "And our profits are such that it makes more sense to keep operating regardless of what happens to these kids."

    10. JRJoe Rogan45:31

        Oh, my God.

    11. CFCaroline Fraser45:32

        And we know this because of the lawsuits that were ultimately filed, because, you know, they, they did end up in court, and there were kids, there was a, a baby who was, um, more, uh, lead-poisoned than any human being that the doctors had ever seen.

    12. JRJoe Rogan45:52

        So it says here that after it destroyed the, the fire broke out that destroyed the filters, it says, "For the next year and a half, the smelter continued to operate, and dust polluted with heavy metals rained down on the area. During that time, children living in the area were screened for lead by the state and the US Center for Disease Control, and the results were foreboding. Children in Kellogg, for example, averaged 50 micrograms per deciliter of blood. The CDC recommends five micrograms high enough to warrant concern, and children with levels above 45 micrograms are advised to undergo chelation therapy, which involves administrating compounds like..." I don't know how to say that word. How do you say that word?

    13. CFCaroline Fraser46:35

        (laughs) I don't know.

    14. JRJoe Rogan46:36

        "... dimercaptocynk acid, either orally or intravenously to remove heavy metals from the bloodstream. Lead is a neurotoxin linked to schizophrenia, poor academic performance, low cognitive ability, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Once the metal gets into the blood, it concentrates in the brain, the kidneys, the liver and the bones. In pregnant women, lead can cross into the placenta, poisoning their unborn babies." Holy shit. (exhales)

    15. CFCaroline Fraser47:08

        Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was a nightmarish thing and...

    16. JRJoe Rogan47:11

        Look at this. It says, oh my God, it, and so listen to this, "Slowly poisoned, as a teenager in Kellogg, Ohio, Flory," this person we're talking about, "attended the Silver King School, built in 1928 in the gulk, gulch between Bunker Hill Lead Smelter and zinc plant. An offshoot of the Coeur d'Alene River flowed by the school. It was," says Flory, "a light, glowing green color, sort of a glow, like a glow stick." Oh, God. "In 1973, a fire broke out," and so this is the, the fire that we were talking about. Oh my God. "A, a light, glowing green color."

    17. CFCaroline Fraser47:53

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan47:54

        Fuck.

    19. CFCaroline Fraser47:56

        I used to live in, um, New Jersey right by the, um, in, in, um, Jersey City.

    20. JRJoe Rogan48:04

        Oh, yeah.

    21. CFCaroline Fraser48:05

        Right by the, uh, Liberty State Park, which a bunch of the acreage of that was off-limits to people because it was so (laughs) polluted.

    22. JRJoe Rogan48:15

        Yeah.

    23. CFCaroline Fraser48:15

        And I remember, you know, 'cause you could actually walk from my apartment in Jersey City (laughs) to Liberty S- Liberty State Park, but you had to go by this, you know, place that was crushing cars, one of those facilities where they, um, compact cars. And, I mean, there was all this heav- heavy industry there, and, and pollutants, and you had to walk across this little wooden trail over a, a stream...... um, to get to the park and the water was that color. (laughs) I mean, it was like-

    24. JRJoe Rogan48:49

        Ugh.

    25. CFCaroline Fraser48:49

        ... this disgusting, you know, color not found in nature and you just looked at it and thought, "Wha- what is that? What's in that?" You know.

    26. JRJoe Rogan48:58

        And this is in the United States of America where we have at least some kind of regulations.

    27. CFCaroline Fraser49:05

        Yeah.

    28. JRJoe Rogan49:05

        Just imagine what is happening when these companies are allowed to ship off to third world countries where there's no regulation and they're bribing officials and just-

    29. CFCaroline Fraser49:19

        Well, that's-

    30. JRJoe Rogan49:19

        ... polluting everything.
12. 50:10 – 1:06:25

    Living with contamination: Superfund limits, lakes as sinks, and “remediation” trade-offs

    1. CFCaroline Fraser50:10

       And that place, uh, the Coeur d'Alene, um, you know, there's a town- city called Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, but there's also this giant lake, uh, Lake Coeur d'Alene, and all that pollution from Bunker Hill, from the mines, from the, um, smelter, it all went downriver and is now sitting at the bottom (laughs) -

    2. JRJoe Rogan50:35

       Yeah.

    3. CFCaroline Fraser50:35

       ... of Lake Coeur d'Alene, and that's been a Superfund, uh, project for many, many years, but they really can't clean that up because it's w- it's the kind of thing where you try to remove the sediment that's full of all the lead and stuff and it-

    4. JRJoe Rogan50:54

       Kicks up into the water.

    5. CFCaroline Fraser50:55

       ... stirs everything up.

    6. JRJoe Rogan50:56

       Yeah.

    7. CFCaroline Fraser50:56

       And so it's really, really almost impossible to- to clean a lot of that stuff.

    8. JRJoe Rogan51:02

       Ugh. Yeah, we were talking about this the other day, that you really shouldn't even eat freshwater fish because freshwater fish, the- the problem is because of all the pollutants that settle into these lakes, when you don't have flowing water, freshwater fish is just sitting in all these chemicals and all these heavy metals and it's- it's, uh, you know, it's really disturbing. Like you- if you eat freshwater fish, your exposure to forever chemicals is like ridiculously high. Like what- what was the number? We- we pulled it up the other day, but i- i- it's akin to like eating one freshwater fish is akin to I believe it's like a year of exposure to forever chemicals.

    9. CFCaroline Fraser51:51

       Yikes.

    10. JRJoe Rogan51:52

        Yeah. BPAs and, uh, all these different disgusting things that are a part of our world that we didn't know until it was too late. Eating one freshwater fish equals a month of drinking forever chemicals water. (laughs)

    11. CFCaroline Fraser52:09

        (laughs)

    12. JRJoe Rogan52:09

        Oh my God. PFAS found in high levels in freshwater fish with most concern for vulnerable communities. I- I remember we did this television show once and, uh, we were in Detroit, and Detroit, i- which is notoriously very poor and at one point in time was the third richest city in the world, um, but when we were there, these people were, uh, fishing in this lake, really obviously very poor people, um, and e- just catching food in this lake and I was like, "Oh my God, like what are these people eating? Like this is clearly polluted water." And it was just outside of a plant, and, you know, they had no choice. They needed food, and so they- they went there. They're poor and who knows what's- what kind of health consequences these poor people are suffering from.

    13. CFCaroline Fraser53:02

        Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely the- the poorer communities that get the worst from all this.

    14. JRJoe Rogan53:08

        And the thing is, is like 150 years ago, all that was pristine. It's a such a short amount of time.

    15. CFCaroline Fraser53:17

        Yeah. Yeah.

    16. JRJoe Rogan53:17

        If you think about how long those lakes existed, how long these river systems existed, and in a couple of hundred years-

    17. CFCaroline Fraser53:25

        Yeah.

    18. JRJoe Rogan53:25

        ... we've ruined everything essentially forever.

    19. CFCaroline Fraser53:29

        That's-

    20. JRJoe Rogan53:29

        For profit.

    21. CFCaroline Fraser53:30

        Yeah. (laughs) Absolutely. I mean-

    22. JRJoe Rogan53:32

        And they knew it.

    23. CFCaroline Fraser53:33

        Yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan53:33

        And that's what's sick. The thing in, you're telling me about this smelting f- plant and the fire in Idaho and the fact that they knew and they- they made a back of a napkin calculation as to th- these children's lives, that is so disgusting.

    25. CFCaroline Fraser53:48

        It-

    26. JRJoe Rogan53:48

        It's so- it's so hard to believe that that's how people operate, but yet I know they do.

    27. CFCaroline Fraser53:53

        Yeah. I mean, it's- it's murder.

    28. JRJoe Rogan53:56

        Yeah.

    29. CFCaroline Fraser53:56

        And that's why (laughs) I called it Murderland, you know? I think that the behavior of these corporate actors was as bad, I mean, it's, you know, maybe pernicious to compare, but I think that, you know, people have come to see that the ways that corporations have behaved is murderous, you know? That they're not... (laughs) I mean, aside from, you know, just the issue of taking responsibility, they're just gonna go ahead with what they wanna do and make the profits that they want and leave us to pay the price, and that, I think, is something that in a sane world would have to change, you know? We would have to...... look at what a corporation wants to do before they start doing it.

    30. JRJoe Rogan54:49

        Yeah.
13. 1:06:25 – 1:11:56

    Tacoma’s cleanup and its absurd afterlife: soil replacement, bankruptcy, and condos beside a toxic ‘bag’

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:06:25

       Yeah, this term remediation, like how does one remediate a piece of land, like a five-acre plot of land that you plan on building a beautiful house on Vashon Island on? Like how, how do, how do they do that?

    2. CFCaroline Fraser1:06:40

       Well, in-

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:06:40

       They have five acres of ground that's poisoned.

    4. CFCaroline Fraser1:06:43

       Yeah, in, in Tacoma, what they did... That was where the worst of the pollution was, because the smokestack was getting- sitting right, you know, near the water. Um, the smokestack was blown up in the '90s, um, and, and they-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:07:00

       Blown up?

    6. CFCaroline Fraser1:07:00

       ... yeah, they exploded the, the smokestack (laughs) which I'm-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:07:05

       On purpose?

    8. CFCaroline Fraser1:07:06

       Yeah. They, they, you know, they closed the plant in 1986 and this-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:07:10

       Oh, so it was a debt control demolition?

    10. CFCaroline Fraser1:07:11

        Yeah, so it was a ... Yes, exactly.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:07:13

        Which also probably contributed greatly to more pollutants.

    12. CFCaroline Fraser1:07:16

        Yeah. They claimed that they cleaned the inside of the smokestack (laughs) , but-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:07:20

        Before they blew it up?

    14. CFCaroline Fraser1:07:21

        Yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:07:22

        Oh, great. (laughs)

    16. CFCaroline Fraser1:07:23

        But, yeah, um, so yeah, in Tacoma, they, they carted away tons of soil. Uh, they took, you know, they went into people's yards, they tested all of the yards and told people, "Okay, you're gonna have to replace the soil." Um, and, and so yeah, they went in and they ... By this point, ASARCO had declared bankruptcy and the EPA eventually had to take over the whole thing. Um, but they, you know, the EPA got an unprecedented, uh, environmental, uh, bankruptcy settlement out of ASARCO which was close to $2 billion. Um, I think it was the highest settlement that they'd ever gotten from a corporation. But it had to clean up about 20 different (laughs) , uh, Superfund sites, including the one in Idaho, in Coeur d'Alene, which they, you know, they've been working on that for years and still haven't finished. But in Tacoma, they actually did replace the soil in many, many people's yards. Um, but, you know, they run out of money. I mean, I think on places like Vashon, um, a lot of that was on the southern part. Uh, I think you could request, uh, soil replacement, um, in some of these places, but it wasn't necessarily guaranteed depending on where you lived.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:08:49

        Well, that's also so destructive to the ecosystem. So you're taking out everything ...

    18. CFCaroline Fraser1:08:55

        Yeah.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:08:55

        ... that allows these plants to live, animals, mycelium, all- all the different n- the network that con- connects all these plants together, you're pulling all that stuff out and introducing new soil.

    20. CFCaroline Fraser1:09:11

        Yeah.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:09:11

        And you're not gonna do it everywhere. You're n- you're not gonna get all of it out. There's no way. You're not gonna be able to do the whole island. You're not gonna be able to do, like every-

    22. CFCaroline Fraser1:09:18

        Right.

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:09:18

        ... inch of Tacoma, all the land.

    24. CFCaroline Fraser1:09:22

        Yeah, and of course, they have to take that soil somewhere, so-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:09:25

        Right. Oh.

    26. CFCaroline Fraser1:09:25

        ... in Tacoma, they, they took it to some special landfill. But, I mean, one of the really crazy things (laughs) that happened as a result of closing the smokestack, um, there was that they took that arsenic kitchen that I was talking about, the one that had been up in, in Everett, and some of the most contaminated parts of the buildings that were part of the whole smelter compound, and the c- the ... ASARCO promised that they were gonna take all that stuff and put it (laughs) somewhere else. I don't know where they were gonna put it, but they said they were gonna take it. But then, they went bankrupt and so they didn't remove it, and instead they created this very bizarre, um, kind of pit with, where they put all the worst stuff, including a bunch of the soil, the contaminated soil from Everett and the arsenic kitchen, and they put it in a sort of super heavy-duty plastic-lined, you know, garbage bag essentially. I mean, if you can imagine like the largest garbage bag in the world, they put all this stuff in it, and they capped it with soil. And that thing is sitting there, you know, still, even though they have now, um, you know, they cleared off the whole, uh, area where the compound was, where the factories and the th- the furnaces were, and they built condos on top of that. (laughs)

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:11:02

        Oh, my God.

    28. CFCaroline Fraser1:11:03

        But behind the condos is this giant hump-

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:11:08

        Man.

    30. CFCaroline Fraser1:11:08

        ... of contaminated stuff in a giant plastic garbage bag.
14. 1:11:56 – 1:28:47

    From Dune to “Murderland”: cultural echoes, corporate lies, and neurodevelopmental damage

    1. CFCaroline Fraser1:11:56

       Well, they have a lot of stuff that they've done. I mean, in the, in the book, I talk about, you know, th- you know Frank Herbert who wrote Dune?

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:12:04

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CFCaroline Fraser1:12:05

       He was from Tacoma.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:12:07

       Oh.

    5. CFCaroline Fraser1:12:07

       And he, in fact, the stuff in Dune about the pollution and what has happened to the planet, you know, that, that he dramatized, a lot of that came from his disgust with the smelter.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:12:24

       Ah.

    7. CFCaroline Fraser1:12:24

       Um, and, and you know-

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:12:25

       That makes sense.

    9. CFCaroline Fraser1:12:25

       ... a planet that had basically destroyed its whole environment. Um, and now, they have, um, you know, developed this whole little park on one ... and you know, the condos are on one end of this what used to be the smelter property, and then on the other end, on top of this slag land, the slag is the stuff that's left over after you've pulled all the metal out of the rocks. There's the stuff that, once it's cooled off, looks like gravel.... and it's called slag, but it isn't really gravel (laughs) . I mean, it's, um, contaminated with all this stuff. It's contaminated with arsenic and... And so, they built a park that's called Dune Park, and it's dedicated to Frank Herbert (laughs) . And it's this little walking trail, and the whole thing, I think, is developed in such a way that, um, it's kind of lined with plastic (laughs) , and there's a plastic liner, you know, on the, um, shores to keep stuff from leaking out. And like, if you live in one of those condos, you can't plant anything that will be larger than a, you know, small shrub, in part because of the plastic liner thing.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:13:47

        Oh, my God.

    11. CFCaroline Fraser1:13:48

        Yeah. It's, it's wild.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:13:50

        That's so crazy. Oh. It's so disturbing. And then, there's so many factors too, right? There's the plants, and then there's the industrial pesticides. Have you ever read Dissolving Illusions? Uh, Suzanne Humphries wrote this book about... And one of the, uh, aspects of the book is about DDT-

    13. CFCaroline Fraser1:14:20

        Oh.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:14:20

        ... and the ubiquitous use of DDT, and how so many people in rural communities were coming down with, in air quotes, "polio."

    15. CFCaroline Fraser1:14:30

        Oh.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:14:30

        Paralytic polio, that was directly correlated to the use of DDT. Like, the same areas where people... And it wasn't just human beings that were getting this polio, but it was also cows and horses and dogs. They were getting paralyzed as well, which it doesn't cross species. Human-derived polio does not cross species. It's a very dark story.

    17. CFCaroline Fraser1:14:57

        Wow.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:14:57

        And... You want to hear something crazy? What percentage of polio do you think is asymptomatic?

    19. CFCaroline Fraser1:15:04

        I've never heard that there's polio that's asymptomatic.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:15:08

        95 to 99%.

    21. CFCaroline Fraser1:15:09

        Wow.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:15:10

        95 to 99% of actual polio is asymptomatic.

    23. CFCaroline Fraser1:15:17

        Wow.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:15:17

        So what they were calling polio was most likely DDT poisoning-

    25. CFCaroline Fraser1:15:22

        Wow.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:15:22

        ... that was sprayed everywhere, that was sprayed everywhere for gypsy moths and all, all sorts of different pest-

    27. CFCaroline Fraser1:15:28

        Mm.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:15:28

        They just... They didn't know. And then once they did know, it was too late, and they were just trying to cover it up and say, "No, we cured polio. We cured it. Look." And these people that were, you know, getting air quotes "polio," were most likely getting poisoned by DDT.

    29. CFCaroline Fraser1:15:47

        Yeah, I think that the... You know, a lot of this environmental stuff has become so overwhelming to people that they kind of tuned it out.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

        Yes.
15. 1:28:47 – 1:39:04

    Policy stakes and modern exposures: schools, pipes, EPA funding, plastics, and the book’s reception

    1. CFCaroline Fraser1:28:47

       And, and the government is not, you know, completely blameless in all of this either because, you know, in terms of, of lead, for example, one of the places that I think people are really concerned about is the schools, you know-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:29:03

       Yeah.

    3. CFCaroline Fraser1:29:03

       ... public schools. Public school buildings were built, you know, often decades ago. So they're old, and they have old plumbing. They have lead pipes.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:29:13

       Lead paint.

    5. CFCaroline Fraser1:29:14

       Um, lead paint.

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:29:15

       Which is even crazier-

    7. CFCaroline Fraser1:29:16

       Uh-

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:29:16

       ... that they used lead in paint.

    9. CFCaroline Fraser1:29:17

       Yeah.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:29:18

        Like...

    11. CFCaroline Fraser1:29:19

        And so there's, you know, uh, there are real questions about how much the government is going to be on the hook for replacing all of this-

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:29:29

        Right.

    13. CFCaroline Fraser1:29:30

        ... stuff that has to happen, which is, you know, so much money-

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:29:33

        Right.

    15. CFCaroline Fraser1:29:34

        ... in order to do that, and, you know, they, they have occasionally kind of tiptoed up to this. I think the, the, you know, the Biden administration did say that they were gonna spend, you know, millions of dollars to try and do s- work at schools. Now, I think that's all in question. And so, yeah, it's a, it's a kind of a frightening period right now because the EPA is being defunded in a lot of ways. I'm sure the EPA is not a perfect, um, agency. (laughs) You know? I'm sure they've made, um, mistakes, but they're the ones-

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:30:12

        Well, I'm sure they've been compromised, but also someone should be looking into this.

    17. CFCaroline Fraser1:30:15

        Yes. And-

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:30:16

        And you're gonna need some sort of an environmental group-

    19. CFCaroline Fraser1:30:20

        Right.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:30:21

        ... that is responsible and just, that can look at these things and say, "Hey, this is a real issue." And all of our health-

    21. CFCaroline Fraser1:30:28

        Right.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:30:29

        ... is dependent upon them doing a really good job of sussing this stuff out.

    23. CFCaroline Fraser1:30:34

        And it's the EPA that's responsible for the Superfund program, which is, uh, in large part responsible for cleaning this stuff up. But they're being defunded, you know, and so who's gonna do that? Who's gonna clean up, you know, the areas that have radioactive, um, you know, legacy pollution from World War II, Hanford and all of that? I mean, that stuff's been going on for decades-

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:31:06

        Yeah.

    25. CFCaroline Fraser1:31:07

        ... and it's not finished. (laughs)

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:31:08

        Well, there's an area in France that is the size of Paris-... that human beings can't go into, all because of the war.

    27. CFCaroline Fraser1:31:18

        And what kind of-

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:31:20

        Or you can find it-

    29. CFCaroline Fraser1:31:21

        ... um-

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:31:21

        Jamie could find this, so I don't want to speak out of turn about this, but munitions.

Episode duration: 2:03:14