Let's Talk About Thalidomide | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

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Let's Talk About Thalidomide | BEHIND THE BASTARDS
Robert is joined by Francesca Fiorentini to discuss the Nazis who poisoned everyone’s babies.
Original Air Date: August 31, 2021
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There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
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#BehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsPodcast #RobertEvansBehindtheBastards #BehindtheBastardsMerch #BehindtheBastardsJohnLandis #BehindTheBastardsHost #BehindtheBastardsIvermectin #BestBehindtheBastardsEpisodes #BehindtheBastardsBestEpisodes

[@duncandisorderly9445]

One of my favorite lines… “I’ll believe companies are people when Texas decides to execute one.”

[@therearedoors]

Genius.

[@sigmascrub]

6:20 Could you imagine being in a job interview and just suddenly screaming out in ecstasy because your twin sister's getting her back blown out? 😂

[@thomasgiles2876]

Or vice versa for your sister because how much you need the job.

[@theautisticguitarist7560]

I can't wait for this interesting episode about a completely harmless substance that hasn't lead to any long lasting societal damage.

[@SnarkNSass]

🤨

[@suzbone]

That show would be Behind the Benign

[@kombatwombat6579]

The name itself sounds inoffensive: thalidomide. Slides sweetly off the tongue.

[@luiseneas]

​@@suzbone*infront of the benign

[@mr70camarors]

​@suzbone so, today were going to talk about water.

[@Chloe-dv9ns]

when i heard the story of thalidomide from my chemistry prof in undergrad, it was framed in a very different way. basically that it was 'accidental' and that the damage caused was because the thalidomide molecule is chiral and chirality couldn't be detected by machines at the time (or if they could, it couldn't be separated via purification). this version is much more heinous, no lie 😭 i'm disgusted.

[@CL23Alpha]

Both things can be true at the same time. They don't need to know how their drug kills/disables to have no ethics and still market it the way they did. At least we can say that in the aftermath countries clamped down on market approval and drug trials. There may still be a lot left to desire, but it's basically impossible nowadays that a drug that unsafe even goes to phase I clinical trials. In the last few decades, there were only maybe a handful of drugs that went to phase I in humans (~10 subjects) that had critical effects and the mechanism of action was a lot less obvious, like a few amino acid differences in a whole protein between human and mice that led to a slightly different 3d structure (back then pretty unpredictable, nowadays you could maybe use alphafold for proteins that don't already have their structure known through x-ray crystallography). And that is out of millions of drugs that went to phase I clinical trials during that period

[@Bluecho4]

Like, yes, they probably couldn't detect why Thalidomide would be a problem at the time. But then issue becomes when the company learned about all these people with persistent (or permanent) nerve damage, or the birth defects. And not only didn't immediately take the drug off the market, but actively worked to expand it and protect it from scrutiny. Also, the fact that a sizeable portion of its researchers were Nazis. Not just incidental, "did it for jobs reasons" Nazis, but full-blown "at the camps, actively doing war crimes and heinous experiments" Nazis.

[@packman2321]

Yes, I remember hearing this one in med school (along with the claim that they didn't do testing on pregnant animals being used to underscore the danger of transferring a drug designed as a sedative to off label uses). I think in general, science education can be a bit blind to its own history. There's a tendency to want to package historical examples into easy stories of mistake-> progress and present those mistakes as relatable results of 'bad science'. Obviously it's all with good intent (I'd prefer to have a doctor who is careful with drug provision than not), but I think it can also sort of blind doctors and other researchers to the fact that they're operating in a political system, with partial information and to the degree to which these systems have often been as involved as military and political ones in atrocious stuff. I'm glad I know this one now at least, it really fills in a gap vis a vis how Thalidamide spread so far and why its negative side effects went unnoticed (edit: unaddressed is probably a better word here).

[@Bluecho4]

@@packman2321 Not to mention the forces of Capitalism and Greed (but alas, I repeat myself). If a scandel is settled out of court, like this one, many who aren't familiar with the particulars won't know or be willing to admit that corporate greed underpinned the activity. Indeed, many Neo-Liberals are unwilling to question the efficacy of the Capitalist system at all, let alone recognize malicious intent. It's easier to think that the scientists at the company just made a mistake, than to admit that corporations can and do perpetuate heinous acts just to make more money.

[@JustinEdwords]

It sounds pretty similar to fetal alcohol syndrome

[@orchidrose1410]

My stepdad’s best friend was one of the 17 American thalidomide babies born in 1960! Nice guy, he ended up dying of Covid in February of 2021, he was missing an arm and had the flipper legs. He also had underdeveloped lungs but was an antivaxer too…it made no sense to us, but ya know🤷‍♂️

[@RaunienTheFirst]

Of all the people to mistrust the pharmaceutical industry, the guy that was *deformed by the pharmaceutical industry* makes a lot of sense.

[@Neuttah]

​@RaunienTheFirst He knows a thing or two because he's been a thing or two. But at the same time, yeah, the takeaway...not the finest

[@angiep2229]

It actually makes a great deal of sense to me that someone who is a victim of a pharmaceutical screw-up might be distrustful of vaccines. It sucks; I'm very in favor of vaccination, but I can definitely understand why someone like this person would be hesitant.

[@RexytheRexy]

Murder + torture one person, you're a psychopathic criminal. Murder + torture thousands, you're a scientific asset. P.S. "Don't say that he's hypocritical say rather that he's apolitical 'once rockets are up, who cares where they come down..." - Tom goddamn Lehrer, Harvard mathemetician, pianist, and musician, responsible for the atomic-bomb classic "Who's Next" (my favorite song when I was seven) I was raised with his music - I knew who Von Braun was as a child because of that song.

[@grassbearreal]

oh my god, I finally have a comment section to express this gripe. at 18:40, when Robert says "there's a great Wernher Von Braun song against him," he meant to say a great Tom Lehrer song. It's just called 'Wernher Von Braun'.

[@LittleMissLounge]

There's a documentary about thalidomide on KZbin. I can't remember what it's called offhand, but it wouldn't be hard to find. One of the talking heads was a former thalidomide baby who was born without arms (I think). He was upfront about the lifelong resentment he felt. It was palpable. So, I'm sure he loved the hell out of that apology.

[@antimuppet]

At 38:00 "Is it in mascara?" Me, as an old "Oh, you sweet summer child Francesca Fiorentini."

[@midnighthope7752]

We love us some heavy metal poisoning folks

[@shmehfleh3115]

There's an offhand reference to Thalidomide in the Kids In The Hall movie, Brain Candy: "There were only a couple of flipper babies!"

[@greggreenfield5532]

Another episode with a casual Warhammer 40k reference! There are a few companies that need a Bolt round after a swift trial! Haha

[@EvilUrchin]

I'm afraid in this case he's probably referring to the kind of bolt gun used to kill cattle. Still, appropriate either way.

[@burneternally]

Please do an episode on Biggalow Aerospace or George Knapp. They're conning a lot of people right now

[@nickscurvy8635]

The idea "you could have them in prison and still use their skills" was actually basically the soviet line. German scientists recruited by the soviet union we not much more than glorified prison labor. They were in fact considered a form of war reparations from germany to the ussr. The scientists were paid well, but their participation was not optional or negotiable.

[@Blunderbuss09]

My history teacher played to us Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' and asked us to pick one of the events or people he mentioned as the subject of a research assignment. For some reason I chose Thalidomide. So hey you guys are doing a podcast on this subject, how cool! ... Wait, why are you starting off talking about Nazi scientists? Oh. Oh no.

[@DancingSword]

The part that kills me is didn't they keep selling it in South America after it was banned everywhere else?

[@kikilo9647]

I'm a bit confused because that drug is standard in cancer treatment here the DR unless i got it wrong? Never mind i got it now

[@Neuttah]

Heeeeyyyyy, it's another dalkon shield episode!

[@BluetheRaccoon]

yup.

[@Daedalus117]

​@@kikilo9647it's still used for that, yes

[@zhazhagab0r]

A+ Tom Lehrer reference 18:41

[@fidgettyspinner3028]

Oh shit, HERE'S that episode

[@mmmhorsesteaks]

Oh shit we love a bit of Francesca!

[@RidleyJones]

Wow 30:30 sausage so bad it's a war crime. Apparently Kay's Cooking is not the floor in terms of cooking skill.

[@suzbone]

FUIYOHHHHH!!!

[@crossroadswanderer]

1:19:00 Alternative title: "Middle Managers: A Case Study".

[@lowwastehighmelanin]

One of the children of the Wertz (sp?) family recently came under fire in Germany for her classist commentary. They haven't changed.

[@gooseberrygoosusberrius4171]

I heard the same story in college Organic Chemistry class as has been mentioned elsewhere in the comments, that thalidomide is an enantiomer and has the added quirk of only being halfway horrific (where only one of the pair of isomers is the mutagen--similar to spearmint oil and caraway seed oil being enantiomers so you better get the right synthetic in the chewing gum). It's true that separation science wasn't up to the task of separating those isomers out, but it's also entirely likely that small variances in manufacture will shift production from one isomer to the other. The result could be more unpredictable than we expect (each manufactured batch having a different ratio of isomers) but since the drug was tested in concentration camps I wouldn't be surprised if the variances in outcomes were blamed on the test subjects themselves. I'd also read that the defects completely depend on the week of pregnancy that the drug was taken, whether the "flipper" is a hand, elbow, or at the shoulder, for example. Every time harmful drug interactions happen, it makes it very difficult to trust that your doctor is advocating honestly for your health.

[@wulferikgebhardt5312]

I mean, I knew Grünenthal was a sketchy company, but not that they were THAT sketchy.

[@moocow3742]

"Children of thalidomide" and "The good die young"? Is this episode about Nazi doctors sponsored by Jewish singer-songwriter Billy Joel? That would be pretty on-brand for this podcast.

[@adam346]

T-34 is probably not the best example of "getting more armor on the field" because they were produced in such a garbage way many didn't even have sights and would have to literally bore-sight and then fire, hoping the tank had not moved... the Sherman/Cromwell/PZ4 are all good tanks and it may not have mattered much if Germany produced far more of them or not.. they didn't have the fuel for a bunch of larger tanks, why would having more smaller tanks be much better? You need more crews, need more ammo, need more of everything...

[@Bluecho4]

Yeah, the Nazis were never going to out-produce the US industrial capacity when it came to tanks, even if their factories weren't being constantly bombed or sabotaged. Let alone fuel them.

[@Hart501]

T-34 was cheap, fast and easy to Maintain regardless of reliability. Russia had the men and the resources. Panzer IVs we’re notorious for being extremely difficult to repair (like many other German tanks.) there were points during the war in the East where some German divisions were using exclusively captured Russian tanks due to this fact.

[@adam346]

@@Hart501 from what I understand they used some of the earlier models of T-34's and some captured KV tanks... the early models which were built pre-invasion were probably built correctly and not in such a rushed way that they didn't have seats or sights. I am not excluding Germany from poor craftmanship either. Their late-model panthers and tanks in general were all rushed to be put together by slave labor... there were firing tests done on panther front-plates near the end of the war and a typical 75mm AP round would crack the plate because they no longer had access to good quality steel... also the T-34's armor was hardened wayyy too much which would cause spalling inside the tanks... a T-34 could have an entire dead crew inside of it and still look functional because the shrapnel from a ricochet shredded said crew.

[@DStecks]

The Soviet argument would probably be that if you're sending out a shitload of tanks, the ones that can't shoot accurately can still distract fire away from the ones who can.

[@bethmeadows8253]

Thank you. It was very interesting

[@BehindTheBastards]

Great to hear!

[@FTZPLTC]

My headcanon is that the ads in the first ad break were for the Nazi Party and SquareSpace.

[@zyavoosvawleilte1308]

20:43 Francesca invents the Sharashka

[@thygrrr]

Everyone: "..." Robert: "You're a piece of shit, you're a piece of shit, and you're a piece of shit; EVERYONE is a piece of shit!!!"

[@VooshSpokesman]

Love from aChristopherTitus and Vaush fan!

[@Redlurk3]

Nooo! I was wonderin when youse were gonna get to flipper babies😂

[@alexbirdfox]

Have you done an episode on Theodore Morell yet? That would be a crazy podcast

[@zhazhagab0r]

It's the two episodes before this one. "Hitler's Drug Problem"

[@EBannion]

Morell heavily featured in the two part episode on the nazi drug use situation that they just posted

[@BeastNationXIV]

"The side effects had nothing to do with thalidomide..." ah, I know what it was then...It was excited delirium. 😉

[@ladyaj7784]

HOW DOES FRANCESCA NOT KNOW ABOUT THALIDOMIDE?? 🤯 I didn't realize this was a thing that some people didn't know about! Not ignorance... I just thought it was universal knowledge... like knowing about polio or malaria or the Roman Empire... you might not know much, but you know it was a thing...

[@Ezekiel_Allium]

Gotta ask, you got an interest or expertise in something adjacent to thalidomide? Because as someone not really into anything that would lead me to cross paths with it, I'm not sure I've ever even heard the word before, so the Roman comparison is uh, rather jarring to me.

[@zer0nix]

I think she was just playing the straight man for the set up, or at least I hope...

[@Daedalus117]

​​@@Ezekiel_AlliumI grew up in the 90s and still got plenty of thalidomide references in (old) pop culture and from my parents who were alive then. My parents are the kind of people who listen to public radio though so there's that

[@richardarriaga6271]

​@@Daedalus117I heard about it because a children's host went to get an abortion in Sweden due to thalidomide. She was rightfully fired from her job- who wants a eugenicist to be held up as an example for children? Just makes me hate Nazis and their collaborators even more.

[@thecrustyargonianmaid]

When he first said the name , I didn't know what it was either, mainly also because in my country is was marketed as " Softenon " , when the story went on I suddenly realised I did know about it, just not by that name

[@theITGuy-no3nt]

One of the people on this episode is a writer. Guess we had to add some inane noise to that.

[@rustkitty]

Nice intro, smells like toast!

[@user-te5po4bu8o]

I just don’t believe that no one else was a scientist lol

[@barbarazmysowska5185]

Ossvikheim is certainly a way to pronounce Oświęcim

[@Przeme]

It took me a while to get that he tried to say Oświęcim.

[@Neuttah]

In his defence Polish names are hard even for their neighbours.

[@michaelbell1155]

I just had the song from spies are forever stuck in my head the whole time. Preview: "Nazi's are not so bad 👏, Nazi's are not so bad👏" "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!?".

[@kingbeauregard]

Terrible sausage ... ? Why, it was the WURST!

[@thygrrr]

"Chill Out, you're making money."

[@Gantradies]

to be fair, the later versions of the sherman would probably be a better comparison to the armor germany was making- the wartime T-34's, had.... issues

[@chompytv8591]

1:21:29 Oh okay, you want a bunch of people with the same kind of trauma as me, okay, I feel you.

[@Thomas_Lo]

Alroight, why is this reupped? I checked my calendar and it says either this episode was already released in '21 or I am just experiencing a space time anomaly.

[@Dave-hp4vh]

I got it. It's Erin Brachenburger.

[@QuantumJump451]

Oh Jesus yeah Mengele looks almost like old pictures of my grandad. Same hairstyle

[@SesshyLover777]

Thats also exactly why Japanese war criminals who were doctors served no time and went free right away too 🤷🏼‍♀️

[@avengercannon]

V For Vendetta inspiration

[@johnl5350]

Oh chirality, you bastard.

[@USBBenson]

Knowing that “Grünenthal” means Green Valley somehow makes this a bit worse for me

[@arekhautaluoma4276]

Training babies? Many have tried....

[@ThugShakers4Christ]

Conducting some twin studies with this might of helped foresee this problem, just saying

[@Dave-hp4vh]

Erin Brochenschmidt

[@Dave-hp4vh]

Erin Brochenhammer...?

[@Dave-hp4vh]

Erin Brochendoutch?

[@majuuorthrus3340]

Yanno, I'm starting to see why Zionism got drastically more popular after WW2.

[@davidbaker5587]

more Dragon Mama Franny Fio

[@FlameDarkfire]

The T-34 was trash as well

[@jamiefrontiera1671]

God, I thought oxytocin drug company was bad. Not saying this absolved them, I'm just saying I didn't think the bar was so low for how bad modern companies could not care about patients.

[@Dave-hp4vh]

Erin Brochitler? ...not, that's not right at all :/

[@pssurvivor]

The logic behind having statues monumentalizing painful memories is not to "lean in to wokeness" but to ensure that these things are never forgotten. Can americans ever rise above their lens and look above their urge to paper over horrific memories? And yet she doesn't know billy joel's "we didn't start the fire"? The US really is a study in contradictions!

[@ReyNix-nl5te]

I know the nazis were evil. For an episode about thalidomide he doesn't even talk about it til the end.

[@woahblackbettybamalam]

This episode reinforced the stereotype of women not being funny. So many attempted jokes were pure cringe/bad taste

[@annafdd]

I laughed.

[@pssurvivor]

I am compelled to agree on this one but serve a mild correction: people (men and women) who claim to be funny are often not so. It almost always forces them to play it up unnecessarily