The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 393 - Thomas Midgley

Episode Date: August 28, 2019

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine inventor Thomas Midgley.SourcesMain - The Secret History of Lead by Jamie Lincoln Kitman in The Nation and Deborah Blum’s two part series in WiredTour DatesRedbubble Merch

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biracial American History podcast. Each week I hand have her maker of love. Stern Dogfather. Dave Anthony. He reads a story from American history to his friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. Can we make a rule that let's not talk about our sex lives in the top of the show anymore. Let's say that's a thing we did once and we realized is not what we want and that the audience doesn't want that. I think a lot of people listening got a really great image. You know what I mean? I'm just saying the fact that I'm letting hand have her go is a testament to how messed up the second one was.

Yeah some people don't. That's true but again I don't know. I'm just putting it out there that I'm one of the people with hands. I also make love. Dave, okay. My name's Gary. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tiggly Claude. Okay. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. Actually partner. Hi Gary. No. I see it done my friend. No. No. Roder. Roder in the car. Wow. It's a great introduction. Wow. It's a great song. It's a great song. Because we don't normally wear the cans. We don't. We're wearing the cans. Some of the other shooting happening so we want to make sure we can hear it. Film. There's two dogs here.

We live in a world now. We live in a world now where when you say there's a shooting here we need to say someone's filming something. That's right. So let's be specific. If you would like to watch how dynamic two guys talking in the studio is, with your phones on this time. It's not how you say it. You can go to the All Things Comedy YouTube page and check out some of the other stuff there. We got things called trash tunes where we watch weird cartoons and there's a bunch of other good content on there. So have at it. Have at it. Get down on it. So I want to talk about something really quick. There's been a lot of stuff going on with podcast and sourcing and it's in the news and stuff. So I think a lot of podcasters

are not familiar with the rules, which I think we are one of them. We source everything. We put a link in every description of every show to link to stuff. Journalists would like more to happen. So we're going to start following the lead of what my favorite murder does and last podcast on the left. So at the end of each episode I'll read out the sources just to give props to those guys who are doing a lot of work. Because there's a legal thing and there's an ethical thing and we were told, just do this. It's how you do it. So we're going to do more. Yeah. And then you can also see those on the iTunes when you go to the action. And I don't want to upset anybody. We're trying to do the right thing here and we're trying to do

everything. It's just that we're stumbling along and figuring stuff out as we go. It's just the way it is. You got it. Yes, I do. You do? On that note, the writer, we based the episode The Welfare Queen on, has a new book out, Josh Levin, called The Queen, The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth. And it's all about that fucking story. And so if you like that, it's supposed to be amazing. The Washington Post read like a detective story and it's on audible. So it's supposed to be fucking great. All right, there you go. Check it out. Yeah, check it out. Oh, you know what he also mentioned is that we have another version of this show about the United Kingdom in England that you can find. It's called the dollop England and UK.

Yeah, it's an easy title. People were getting mad. And I was like, Yeah, it's a joke. Yeah, now it has become a real joke for everybody. But yeah, we that's episodes that are just about England. It's like, what do we do? We're gonna do 10 or 10, maybe eight, we're gonna do 10, probably might be eight episodes. So it'll just come out once in a while as a season. And then we'll probably put the live ones up that we record in England on that feed. It's just a way to have another feed or, you know, try to jump into another nation is England a continent. I think it's a continent. We're gonna try to jump into the continent of England. It's not by any means a continent, but we surround by water, correct? Let's just comment. Let's start May 18th,

1889. Our time Jesus Christ. Right. Thomas Midgley, Jr. was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. No, that's a weird place. Beaver Falls. Just beaver's falling. That's horrible. Instead of like the falling rock signs, it's like falling beaver. It is horrifying. Oh my God. Heading the ground. Oh, there's thousands of bodies. There's dead beavers everywhere. It never ends. Oh my God. It's just falling beavers. Oh, I don't know why people live there. Oh, that's the smell. Oh, it's horrifying. Horrifying smell. But the dogs love it. The dogs have never been happier. His father worked at a steel production plant and was an inventor. His mother, Hattie, sure, yeah, was the daughter of an inventor who was quite wealthy. So he came from an

inventing family. Sure. An inventor. And yes, sure. Not right. In 1896, they moved to Columbus, Ohio, where a Tom senior got a job in wheel and tire manufacturing. Okay. So they're fucking killing it. Yeah, sure. Thomas graduated from a Cornell University in 1911 with a PhD in mechanical engineering. Okay. He went back to Ohio and started a business with his dad, the midgling tire and rubber company. Okay. So they're starting their own biz. Sure. It's gonna be fucking great. Thomas got married, he had a couple of kids. Okay. And then the business failed in 1916. You just told me that everything was gonna be okay. So yeah, took you down. Immediately. Yeah. Sometimes it's fast. Yeah. Thomas had a friend who then hired him as an

assistant at the Dayton Research Laboratories. Here we go. Which had just been bought by GM. Here we go. What? It's just interesting. It's a friend. Okay. We've got a gray figure in the shadows coming to life. A friend. At the lab, Thomas worked on problems facing combustible engines. Okay. Because of that time, you know, cars are new. We're trying to work out the kinks. Right. People don't like the exploding car at this time. Well, this is when cars had this horrible problem called knocking. The engine would make big knocking noise. Clang, clang, clang. Even the best cars at Cadillacs, they make horrible noises. And so bad that at times drivers would think the car was like breaking apart. Okay. And the noise happened because gas would mix with air and then

heat ignite and explode. Okay. So they, and sometimes drivers get so freaked out, they lose control of the car and crash. Well, that driver does not deserve to be put in the category. You try to have a big explosion. Overreacting. Over. Yeah, but still. Yeah. I mean, it's a pullover situation. It's not a, oh, God, the cliff. Look, Ted, what are you doing? How did the crashes work? Huh? You know, Ted, he's just like, oh, God, oh, the cliff. Oh, there's a cliff now. Oh, I'm going to go over it. I should have break. He says all that. Yeah. He's like, yeah, you need some, well, especially in like the podcast version of Ted's story, you need to have a lot of self talker. Yeah, it needs to be a little new heart. Ted's a radio play. Ted, no, he's going to tell

you the scene and the setting and the other characters in the room and what he's feeling and what he's physically feeling and doing. Oh, no, we crashed. Oh, we're dying. Oh, we're dying down here. Oh, we're dying. Oh, there's so much blood. Is anybody down there? Oh, yeah, sir, sir. I'm having trouble breathing. Look at my bow tie. I'm the villain. Oh, maybe we shouldn't do radio plays. Oh, no, it's going great. Don't call out what we're doing. So, so they need to stop that explosion thing. They need to put something. How dangerous is the explosion? Well, it's not dangerous. It makes the car. So it's a vanity. It slows it down. It's just a problem. No, it's it's everything slows down. Okay. Yeah. So first he tried a kerosene powered Delco light engine, which was

used on farm equipment. Nothing, tons of knocking. Okay, then he added iodine to the fuel. Sure. I was going to suggest that it worked. But he knew iodine would not work as a long term additive gas to gas. It's not going to, it's not going to hang with gas. No, it won't. So he started testing elements similar to iodine, including camphor, aluminum chloride and melted butter. Well, the last one is so he's out of ideas. He's like, should we just throw some butter in it? See what that does? I mean, I know it's I just have a lot of butter. I mean, he's literally just at home in the morning, putting butter on his toes. The cars. What's wrong with the car? I buttered the motor. I'm a scientist. I put a bunch of butter in the car and I've

ruined it. Have you slept? I have not slept. But I've all of our dairy products are now in the car and I put some I put a bunch of cheese in the tailpipe and I've just maybe you're not a scientist. No, but I'll tell you what, I just think if we make the car a sandwich, yeah, we got a shot. Okay, that's not I'm going to go nap and see if that makes sense in three or four hours. Yeah, 12. Okay. So he started. So he's testing those elements. This one up for six years. He's just testing different elements for six years. Okay. Quote, most of them had no more effect than splitting than spitting in the Great Lakes. Yeah. But I mean, butters are crazy. Well, he he's clearly just fucking throwing shit at the board. Right. So he did try shit eventually.

He did try shit. Okay. Oh, I'm sure he did. Yeah, he's like, the manure doesn't work either and the smell is horrifying. People do you want to go home? What is that? What's your wife? Then in December 1921, he tried a tetrafilot. I hope that's how you say it. TEL as it's known. Okay. It's led. Worked great. Worked great. Well, may I problem was it's led. Yeah, it's there's it's not I say keep I let's say let's go back to the butterboard. Yeah, I liked what we were doing over there. Butter was good. People had known lead was poisonous since 100 BC. So a little while. So people have been kind of on the lead for a little bit. Yes. So the idea of testing lead is like, alright, well, I guess this one's just for you to know if it's possible to solve because we

can't use it. I'm gonna put arsenic in it. Well, in ancient Rome, it was common knowledge that lead could cause in insanity and death. Civil engineer of Vitruvius 2000 years ago, quote, water conducted through earthen pipes is more wholesome than that through lead. This may be verified by observing the workers in lead who are of pallid color. So 2000 years ago, did it, we're pretty hip to bed led being bad to really makes what happened in Michigan and Flint even more upsetting that it's been known for that long. Yeah, I don't I don't want to do a Flint dollar because I think I'm just going to cry. Yes. Like it's Oh, yeah. There's a bad moment that none of those motherfuckers are in jail. No, no, they're not in jail on fucking.

Although did you watch Michael? Michael Moore's movie? Yeah. When Obama takes the sip of water, I can't tough in 1678 workers who made white lead for paint suffered from quote dizziness in the head with continuous great pain in the brows blindness and stupidity. Okay, so there's we should go over here now, baby. Oh, man, I don't know what's up with that pain. Just eating sand. I'm eating my lunchbox. No, don't eat that. What the hell happened to these guys? Are we paying these guys? I'm a clam. Okay. Lead miners would often go mad and even die. And scientists believe low level long term exposure was also bad. Okay, so so we have lead in the motor. That's not great. So it's rather lead was first discovered by a German chemist in 1854. Okay. But it was not used

commercially because of quote, it's known deadliness. Sure. I think we are just on the same page. We are totally agreeing that lead is not a good option a viable path for this. Lead is odorless, colorless and tasteless. Lead does not break down over time. Okay, so we're just talking all downside. Those are the best kinds of poisons, right? The ones that you can't ever get rid of. Yeah, perma poison. Yeah, it does not vaporize and it never disappears. Since the lot like the band. It reminds me of the band fish. It does not feel gonna be mad, right? What fish heads? I mean, I said that. I think it'd be okay. Since the 1920s, the I don't know what Marin said on his podcast, but he was just like, look guys, I don't like Marvel characters.

It's dumb. Like, oh, Jesus, yeah, that's a tweet or he's like, okay, Marvel's stupid. Just get off my back. One of the ones you tweeted 20 minutes later, like, I don't know what happened with that. Oh, God. Oh, God. So since the 1920s, the lead industry have been fighting bans and even warnings on paint, can labels. Okay. The lead industry marketed its poison to children and parents stating that lead paint was safe. And again, we've known for 2000. Just 2000. Yeah, so it's quite a, it's quite a time. That's a little bit of time. Yeah. Paint. It's long enough for us to be like, maybe we were wrong again. We should probably not use this. Let's try it. Paint ads were printed in the Saturday evening post, Good Housekeeping, National Geographic and other magazines, as well as local newspapers.

Dutch boy costumes were sent to kids on Halloween's and they printed coloring books that showed kids how to prepare it. Oh, good Lord. Just getting kids to have fun with lead paint. Marketing lead paints specifically to children. Yep. Okay. All right. Yep. Yep. There's not much else to say about that. The only paint you can drink. Come on, kids. Come drink your paint. It was marketed as an essential, lead was marketed as an essential to America's economic growth. Oh my God. By the 1920s, lead was all over standard middle class homes. It was in pipes, paint, telephones, ice boxes, vacuums, irons, washing machines, dolls, toys, bag, bags, baseballs and fishing lines. But we know that it's bad. Yeah. We know it's bad. So it's

come back because someone owns it business because you can sell it. Right. So my let's do it. Right. So let's do it all now and then we'll figure out the later. Yeah. It's not your problem. Yeah. But scientists were always warning of the dangers of lead. The proof was so solid. Scientists, we're lucky they hang around. I mean, they just have to be very frustrated. All right. So Thomas Midgley is very aware of the dangers of lead. Okay. As was GM. Sure. No one knows exactly why the company decided to push TEL. That's tough to hear. Instead of ethyl, alcohol, which also stopped engine knocking. And is less of a poison? Not. Yes. Not a poison. Okay. Doesn't put his toxic stuff out into the

air. Now, I'm going to guess there's a price difference. Well, any farmer can distill ethyl alcohol. Oh, there it is. Okay. So it is. So anybody can just make, you can just make gas for your car. The solve could just be done by the people themselves and there's no real money in that. It had been, ethyl alcohol had been around as a fuel for years. The first internal combustion engine in 1826 used alcohol and turpentine. Before the Civil War, alcohol was the most used lighting fuel in the country. Okay. Alcohol powered the first engine by the German inventor, Nicholas Otto. And by 1920, alcohol was a proven automotive fuel. Great. And still. What? Let's go with lead.

Tested in 1906 by the Department of Agriculture proved its power and economic benefits. In 1907, 1908, the US Geological Survey and the Navy performed 2,000 tests on alcohol and gasoline engines and they concluded higher engine compression could be achieved with alcohol instead of gasoline. Oh, boy. They noted a total absence of smoke and bad odors. And Henry Ford built his first car to run on farm alcohol like you, the farmer could make. Uh-huh. In 1929, his Model A car had a knob so you could adjust the carburetor on gas or alcohol. Oh my God. It's amazing that I didn't know any, like we just live in such a world that the propaganda is so massive that nobody knows that. Oh my God, that's tough.

Even Thomas Minjley was on board the alcohol train, as I call it. In 1921, he drove a car. Like your father. He got off. In 1921, he drove a car from Dayton to Indianapolis with a gas alcohol blend with 30 percent alcohol. He said, quote, alcohol is a tremendous advantage and tremendous disadvantages, including clean burning and freedom from any carbon deposit and tremendously high compression under which alcohol will operate without knocking. The available horsepower is much greater than alcohol with gasoline. This is really tough. Why? Is there some problem? Yes. Yes. We're living in the biff back to the future too. But all these companies, GM specifically, wanted to sell gas.

Oh, and ethyl alcohol could not be patented and distributed while TEL could. So Minjley suddenly forgot about the greatness of alcohol. The day-to-day test diaries of him testing all those for six fucking years have never been released to the public. Hmm. An archivist in the GM archive once said the archives had been, quote, sanitized. Good. Good. Good. Good. Well, good. Good start. And numbers are all over the place. Once Thomas said he tested 2500 compounds before landing on TEL. Another time he said 33,000. Another time he said 14,991. His numbers are just getting fudged for. Yeah, nonsense. TEL became the solution

Thomas and GM went with to stop engine knocking, even though there was this other thing that you could just make from the brain. From brain. Yeah. Yeah. Even though it was poison and ethanol was not poison. Again, that divide is just really hard to get over. The company chose to kill and harm people for profit, which is weird. Allegedly. I've never heard of that happening in our capital city. No. I am a little like, it is funny. Well, not funny. It's horrifying that I have felt like this has been a problem for less time than that. Oh, right. You know, yeah. To hide the fact that they were using lead, which was again, a poison. Right. TEL was named Ethel. Wait, what's the other one called? Oh God, where is it? What

is it called? I should I go find it here. Ethanol. Okay. So Ethel and ethanol? Yeah. So they called it. I mean, ethanol is still around. We still use it, but it's like, I think it's like five or 10% in some places, but it's not. And Ethel is just TEL. So they made a similar name. Oh, interesting. You cut up on that. And have labeled the poison one similar to ethanol. That's right. And called it just instead Ethel. A grandma name. Meet Ethel. She won't hurt you. She's nice. Sit on her lap. Give her a kiss. Your brain's gone. Yeah. So they started marketing it. There's no mention of lead in any of the advertising reports. Of course not. I mean, it's so messed up that they know that much. Well, don't tell anyone.

Well, let's not say lead. It's lead. Have you met Ethel the Walrus? Look at Grammy. Scientists, some scientists were freaked out. They pushed the government to investigate the public health implications. One wrote a letter to the public health service and asked them to conduct investigations. But the director responded, that would be too time consuming. And they should just get the information from the industry. Yeah, that's true. Go to the company. When has that ever been a problem? Never. No, that's why all those investigations companies do in themselves always, they aren't over a great change. Well, a company will be like, oh, you're right. I was doing bad. Yeah. Yeah, this thing I was going to make money on, it sucks. Yeah. Thomas told us,

Thomas Minjith told the search in general that, quote, the average street will probably be so free from lead that it will be impossible to detect it or its absorption. He's saying that. He's saying, so most of the roads are dirt. Yeah. So he's saying that even with lead coming out of these exhaust pipes, that it's not going to go into the ground. Okay. Which is exactly where it will go. Yeah, well, let's just let that one fly. But he also conceded that, quote, no actual experimental data has been taken. So zero research. Good. Zero research. It's a gut thing. I got a feeling. Because you don't want to do any research into the health consequences of putting lead in there. No. General Motors then funded a government bureau to conduct research

and added a clause saying that GM had to approve the findings. It's just very fucked up. The car and oil industry jumped on the TEL solution for engine knock. Oh my god. Here it is. GM quickly built production facilities. The wonders of what they were calling ethol were advertised. It was a big success. Did people freaked out by engine knocking? It was the magical product. It was also less expensive than adding ethanol to gas. So did people know to do the ethanol thing? Yeah, but this is, but this is, it's like when they told women to smoke when they had babies. You know what it reminds me of too is the radium girls. Yeah, totally.

Lick your brushes, ladies. Lick your brushes. Yeah. In 1922, ethyl gasoline seemed like a wonder product. Lead was, so everyone's just being told this is the thing that's going to stop. And it's not hurting you. Lead was less expensive than I said that. That year, Thomas had to turn down speaking engagements at the American Chemical Society, which he was getting the nickels metal for invention in 1923. He turned that down? No, he wasn't going to speaking engagements. He wasn't showing up. Yeah, because he doesn't want to be late. He probably wants to lie behind closed doors. Well, lie because he's ill. Oh, lay. Quote, after about a year's work in Organic Lead, I find that my lungs... Oh, good lord. Wait, what? I find that my lungs have been affected and that

it is necessary to drop all work and get a large supply of fresh air. Okay, now for the next part of your sentence, which is... He went to Miami to heal. No. He went to Miami to heal. You say more. And there he stayed and healed for a year. Okay. Before he left, he assured the Surgeon General that quote, the average street will probably be free from this. Oh, good lord. What a fuck, these people. How do you do it? A Dr. Krauss of the Institute of Technology in Germany said TEL was a quote, creeping and malicious poison, and that it had to kill the member of his dissertation committee. But Thomas was undeterred. He wrote from Florida to his boss, a GM, that they get sell 20% of the gasoline in the country. But it would actually be more GM had a monopoly with

the patents. So the company would make money for every gallon of gas sold. In April, Thomas was made VP. Oh my God. In a huge PR win, leaded gasoline was used by the top three cars at the Indianapolis 500 on Memorial Day in 1923. It's just all these people just standing in the stands, just inhaling lead. Like, it's fine. I'm pretty sure before that all the cars were using just straight ethyl alcohol. I think that that's what they were doing. They were using ethanol? Yeah, I think they were just using straight-up alcohol before that. And I think that's still, I might be crazy, but I thought maybe it was just the way one thing was written, but it felt like some cars still do, but I might be totally... Right. Well, it's good that, yeah. But still,

it's nice that lead gets a comeback story. Yeah. GM signed exclusive contracts for leaded gasoline with Standard Oil of New Jersey, Standard Oil of Indiana, and Gulf Oil for the East Coast Midwest and Southern Distribution. Okay. So... In August, DuPont's TEL plant in New Jersey... Oh, good. Let's get... Yeah, here we go. Let's get some more cool people involved. Within 30 days, a worker died from lead poisoning. Oh, great. Okay. And DuPont, being rich and having sway over the media, was able to cover it up. Sure. Then one of the first production lines in Ohio was shut down after two employees died. Okay. It's fine. It doesn't seem fine. It's fine. It's what happens with alcohol, too. No, it isn't. You told me the contrary earlier. And in another plant in New

Jersey, there were more fatalities. Hey, it's lead. Workers kept hallucinating insects, and the lab was known as, quote, the house of butterflies. Okay. So, Dave, let's... Come on. Can we be grown-ups for a minute, please? What? People are tripping their balls off from your poison so much that you have a room called the house of butterflies. Well, they're seeing butterflies. They're not there. How is work today? I see butterflies. What does your husband do? He works on cars. And he saw butterflies? Yes, he... Yeah, I guess they have a butterfly room. They're all seeing butterflies. Yeah, they love it. It's great. It's a great job. They bought him a butterfly room. Who would want to work with butterflies? That's what they find picture. Another one of the earliest

factories to take TEL was Standard Oil Facility of Bayway, New Jersey. So, GM got in touch with the U.S. Bureau of Mines in September 1923 because no other government agency was helping, and the bureau was as corrupt as they come. The Bureau of Mines was just there to promote business. If you can imagine... It's shocking. If you can imagine in America an agency that was supposed to oversee something, actually being for business and allowing them to run... I can see it in other countries. The bureau pushed the word for the word led not to be used and instead to use apple. Well, because it has that nasty poison association. Yeah, because people have known for 2000 years. Yeah, because people know it's poison. So, if you tell them that, they're probably going to be a little

hesitant to be like, hey, wait a minute. That's right. Isn't that one makes you go to the butterfly room? In the first year, the facility, the first year, Bayway, New Jersey facility was making TEL. Workers became more and more fearful of going to work. Yes. They nicknamed it the Looney Gas Building. Oh my God. I mean, come on. How do you let... Like, how is this possible? And just the fact that people need work so badly that they do that. But I also... You know what I never under... Like, and it's the same thing now. It's just like numbers wise. Just, you know, you got numbers. Yeah. These are fat cats.

They don't live in clouds. They're on earth too. Workers at the factory acted increasingly strange. Yeah. Well, they're being poisoned to death. They got moody. They had burst of rage, unable to sleep. Yes. Some workers started getting lost on the plant grounds and had trouble remembering their friends. Oh my God. Larry? How do you... How do you... Yeah, careful. Sorry. Sorry, Larry. He just looked at us. He's like, what do you need, Dad? How do you... Like, it is the same dumb stuff where people just don't even think about anything with money because you are compromising your workforce. Like, you definitely are going to

be losing stuff as well because you're losing good workers or skilled workers. They don't care because everybody's expendable. But I would also think that you would... If you have people walking around not knowing where they are, you're like, we're paying this guy to not... Maybe we shouldn't have a place called the fucking butterfly room. This one's not the butterfly room. This one's the looting gas building. Yeah, right. Sorry. I got my... I got the looting gas building in the butterfly room. Several supervisors recommended to the company that the facility should be shut down. Interesting. They were freaked out by the way,

the increasingly bizarre baby. You don't need to tell me what they're freaked out by. Which they... It's always clearly due to illness. Yes. The company did not shut down the plant. GM pushed for TEL production to be increased. Right. Some people were worried. DuPont chairman Irene DuPont wrote to GM that TEL, quote, may be killed by a better substitute or because of its poisonous character or because of its destructive action on the engine. But just a couple months later, he wrote, quote, I have read the doctor's reports and I am not to stir by the severity of the findings. Oh, my God. Something happened and I don't think it was reading a doctor's report.

Yeah, he got a report of like how much money? Yeah, he got a report of a different nature. Well, this is a lot of money. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, you're right. Fuck them. Oh, let people die. Yeah, that's right. On a Thursday, a worker at the Standard Oil Bayway plant in New Jersey named Ernest Olgert started hallucinating. Oh, boy. The next day, he was running around the laboratory screaming in terror. Oh, God. He went home on Saturday. He became so crazy, his sister called the police. He was then taken to a hospital and forcibly restrained and he died the next day. Can we talk about very quickly how that would probably be very different today?

That man would not have died in a hospital. He would have probably died in jail. Yeah, 100%. He totally would have died in jail. Yeah. That's a good point. Thanks. Want to show? Yeah. The next week, workers in the Looney Gas Building started collapsing, going to convulsions, having fits of violent insanity, hallucinations, tremors, and babbling deliriously. I mean, Jesus Christ. What? Like if you are in charge at this point, you have to be like, all right, this is not sustainable. Well, hopefully they can get a couple shifts in. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, hopefully, yeah. If you can train them, if you

can train them. One of the guys, the boss just puts on a butterfly suit and comes down and is just like, all right, guys, so I'm the leader of all of us and we need you to kind of keep working through this. So trust me, my name's Ed. I'm king of the butterflies, their queen or whatever it is. You guys just fell on the butterfly. Yeah, over this way. Put your hands on the machines again. Come on, we're going to, let's, come on, move. I'll help you move some of them. Remember your muscle memory. Okay. There you go. Now we're doing it. All right. He just goes upstairs and takes off the butterfly. I did not fucking sign up for this. Jesus Christ. I had to breathe in there. Okay. So by the end of the week, four more workers from the loony gas building were dead.

35 were in the hospital. My God. They were a total of 49 workers. Wow. That's a high percentage. Yeah. So I would, that's like, if I'm doing math, I would say almost all, almost all your workers. There's like three guys who are like, Hey, what's the plan? Just Jeff's walk around. I'm fine. What's wrong with you guys? Yeah. The building manager, the manager of the building told the New York Times quote, these men probably went insane because they worked too hard. Oh, the, the, I never changes. That never changes. God. He also said the workers had also died because they worked themselves to death because of their enthusiasm for the job. This pinhole, he's trying to get it in. So much. This is such a small. Ask me how much they love the job. How much do they love

the job? They pretend there are butterflies there. That's not okay. That's how much. That's a side effect of lead. No, no, no, no, no. Yes. But chatting butterflies. Why is that guy a butterfly outfit? Why is he back here? Shut that door. This is when the government decided to release that report on the research. Hey, that's fun. GM funded with the agreement. It had to approve the findings. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So this is, it came out right as the media is going crazy over what was happening at the Looney gas. Good news. That is good for you. The state of New Jersey was not impressed with the explanation they got from the plant and ordered the plant closed. The local district attorney called the chief medical examiner from New York city and asked

if his chemistry division could do some research in a TEL. The medical examiner was on. We don't need to do, we know the answer. It's lead. No. Okay. So I'm a medical examiner. You're a guy you come to me. Say they were seeing butterflies. They've been seeing butterflies. It's lead. It's fucking lead. We're trying to figure out what it is. It's, they're seeing butterflies. They're calling the building Looney. They're having me tell you the problem. These guys are dying and not coming to work. Now, my question is, what can we do to fix that? Yeah. So not use the lead, the lead part. We're not using lead. We're using TEL. Okay. Right. The L stands for lead. Well, that's not what we're using. So anyway, we moved on from that one. Outside of that,

what can we do to stop these guys from dying from a butterfly overdosing? Yeah, I feel like we got, we got our wires crossed. It's not butterfly overdosing. They're dying from lead, the lead that you made. Why are the butterflies killing my workers? Who do they work for? That's my question. Do you think they're in the Dupont game? Okay. Who are they working for? Yeah, they are. They're, yeah. Well, so we got to stop the butterflies. You know, it'll kill a butterfly. But don't. God damn it. Yeah, lead's bad for butterflies. Humans, it's fine for them. We use a lot of it here, actually. It's been killing some of our guys with the butterflies. All right. I forget what we were talking about. Smells like lead in here again.

The medical examiner was already on record as having said, quote, the fact that it is readily absorbed and highly poisonous was discovered in Germany in about 1854 when TEL was discovered. And it has not been used in the industry during most of its 70 years since then because of its known deadliness. The poise. Right. Yeah. Deadliness is a thing that is poise. He said lead was well known for damaging nervous systems and lead vapors that were released in TEL manufacturing were absorbed through the skin and inhaled into the lungs. New York had the best forensic toxicology department in the country. And the chief chemist was known as a tenacious researcher. So for three weeks, he learned to figure out how much TEL the workers absorbed before they became ill crazy or

dead. He compared the first four dead to the last guy who died, who had gone out screaming in a straight jacket. Oh my God. I mean, that's the way to go. Yeah. There's a lot of ways to go but screaming in a straight jacket like you're going out big. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Big end. Yeah. Big finish. Big vacation coming up. He found that TEL concentrated in the lungs, the brain and the bones. It was clear the lead vapor had been inhaled and later it would be discovered. Masks used at the plant did not filter out the lead in the TEL. We're actually putting lead in the mass to kind of block the lead fumes. We've got a liner of lead in there. And then these guys are able to breathe. And then we're painting the inside with the Dutch Boy paint.

Which is great paint. It's for kids. Kids can drink it. I don't know if you heard the new ad. Kids, delete it. Use it for spaghetti sauce. It's Dutch Boy paint. So yeah, kids can use it for spaghetti sauce now. And if it made any direct contact with skin, it was absorbed alarmingly fast. So essentially our research has told us that lead is bad still. Yeah. I'm not getting that. Yeah. That's a lot of what I'm picking up for this. Standard Oil decided to fight back and hold the press conference at its Manhattan offices. The war on lead must stop. The press conference featured one Thomas Midgley who would come back. Oh, good. All right. The comeback kid. He told reporters that if Ethel was handled properly, there was nothing dangerous about it.

As in not putting it in cars? Exactly. Oops. I'm sorry. I'm rusty. What was that? Sorry. I've been full of lead. I haven't lied for a year. Sorry. Thomas Midgley then washed his hands in a bowl filled with TEL. Quote, I'm taking no chances whatever, nor would I take any chances by doing that every day. Who does that remind you of? Oh, yeah. Obama. Yes. When Obama drinks, the Obama drinks very in a very stage, staged event. It's really upsetting. Pretends off the cuff to just drink some random tap water. Yeah. And it's all very fake. And as we know. Yeah. Yeah. As we know, that story does not have a happy ending or an ending. Yeah. Sorry, my,

do we have an anti situation? Hmm. I don't know. Okay. So naturally, Thomas blamed the workers at the different plans. Sure. For not protecting themselves properly. Right. Because they're independent contractors. That's right. Right. Gloves and masks were readily available and it was the workers' responsibility to wear them, even though we just learned previously that the masks were more ineffective. Right. A VP explained that the workers weren't well educated men and maybe they didn't realize working with TEL was quote, man's work. Here's the thing. What's happening? What? It's man's work, dude. And they're, and they're like dying like ladies.

I just can't, I mean, the, uh, It's good times, dude. It just, it is good times. America has never been better. Thomas was asked about what kind of research have been done about the health effects of TEL. And he gave the same answer as he had two years before. None. We didn't do that. Why would we do that? It's great. It's led. What's going to go wrong? Yeah. Almost all research was focused on improving the TEL formulas, not whether I could kill you, make you see butterflies. And again. He then rubbed TEL on his hands. The show was dangerous. I'm not taking any chance, whatever, nor would I take any chance doing that every day. Then the New York world said

Thomas frequently bathed in TEL. Okay. So a couple of things. No, he didn't. No, he doesn't. That thing he's putting his hands in, probably not TEL. Right? I don't think it was. Yeah. I don't think he would ever do it, especially not after he just came back from a year of almost fucking dying or whatever was happening. No. That's the flood water. But reporters learned employees were calling it the Looney gas building. And doctors told the press that the violent insanity was brought on by the gradual infiltration of lead into their systems. All right. Well, we're going to talk to some non-doctors and get their opinions because you guys seem pretty closed off to options. Jimmy on the plant,

what do you think happened? Well, it's pretty obvious what happened here, but they're all doing cocaine. God damn it. I knew it. Yeah. Yeah. Just a bunch of them. Vagrants. Anyway, I'm dating that butterfly. I should go over there. The New York Medical Examiner released his report. The New York City then banned the sale of TEL. Oh, come on. And the sale of, quote, any preparation containing lead or other deleterious substances. Let's just tell like I knew what that word is. Sure. As an additive to gasoline. Okay. So New York gets it. So did New Jersey the state? So did Philadelphia. So did Pittsburgh?

Seems like a east coast thing. Yeah. The Bureau of Mines released reports saying Ethel was not an issue. Of course. Yeah. Clean lead. The New York Times front page headline was, quote, no peril to public seen in Ethel gas. The Bureau of Mines reports after long experiments with motor exhausts, more deaths unlikely. That's the end of that chapter. This is the Bureau of Mines. It was a growing pain. They went to because it was totally corrupt. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that a great NRA story by background checks will increase shooting. That's right. Yeah. Still, the companies agreed to stop making TEL until they got a clean bill of health to move forward because they're getting so much shit and cities are shutting down. Sure.

A grand jury then acquitted standard oil of any responsibilities in the workers, illnesses, and deaths. This was even though reports stated the deaths were due to poisoning and that the company should start making TEL again, should not start making TEL again until they make sure workers were safe. Who's the other lawyer? Well, that's pretty damning, but who likes pie? I mean, there's no way that they just pay the jury. Yeah. That sounds tough. That sounds pretty damning. There's no fucking way. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, sure, this document says that lead is the cause of all these things, but have you ever seen a man shake his keys? Look at that. Isn't that crazy? Look at him jangle. Makes you forget about everything else you heard in the courtroom today,

huh? Innocent. Well, hold on. Let's get that. Let's get that written down. Let's do this now. Let's close up. I rest. This is a good key. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably what they did. They probably like let it out the jury. They probably like made the jury breathe lead. Drink this. Drink this. Okay. We find the defendant's spacey. Sorry. Butterflies. We're going to ride the butterfly. Thomas Midgley kept with the company line telling a group of scientists, quote, so far as science knows at the present time, TEL is the only material available which can bring about these anti knock results. Except for the other things that I discovered along the way that I'm lying about, which are vital importance to the continued economic use by the general public

of all automotive equipment. And unless a grave and inescapable hazard rests in the manufacture of TEL, its amendment cannot be justified. Okay. Look, a lot of you are worried about TEL and what it does. Now I've been putting my hands in it to show you, but now I'm going to have a little sipsy poo. That's some good TEL, right? And now to show all the naysayers, I'm going to butt chug a little bit. So we've got a funnel here and my buddy Hank here is going to pour a bunch of TEL into me. What is the moth man doing? I hear that. He's my agent. He's really good. He's a closer. In May 1925, the US surgeon general called a national tetraethyl lead conference to be followed by the formation of an investigative task force to study the problem. Hey, you know,

it's amazing is how we already know that lead is a poison. So let's take it through the corporate slow red tape grind for a few years. That same year, Midgeley published his first health analysis of TEL, which acknowledged just a minor health risk. Quote, compared with other chemical industries, it is neither grave nor inescapable. And obviously I couldn't write the book. My hands fell off a year and a half ago. I was putting them in. Never mind. So the government then held the TEL conference in DC in May 1925, which would be followed by the task force to study the issue. This was the brainchild of no, the TEL companies, GM, DuPont, et cetera. People from both sides of the debate were there, but more on the pro side. One was Frank Howard, who was a vice president of the

Ethel Corporation. What did he think? He made the argument that lead gas was a quote, gift from God. Yep. There we go. There it is. Lovely, lovely, lovely. Well, if he wanted us to have it, by the way, all these gifts from God's, these are the same people who fought weed legalization forever. We got all these bountiful gifts from God, coal, lead, marijuana is a sin. Don't burn it. You know what God wants us to have? Death air. Let me ask you this. When you smoke a joint, do you go to Butterfliesville? Yeah, sometimes. Oh, well, uh, still can't smoke it. Buy this, drink this, put your hands in it. He also said, uh, it quote, continued development of motor fuels is essential in our civilization. I named my daughter Ethel. That year, I established, uh,

Thomas, oh, I already said that, uh, the task force was made up of industry scientists like Thomas Mitchley. Great. So that's good that he's evaluating this. Uh, there were no experts from any of the cities where TL had been banned. Oh, interesting. Or any agency that produced a critical analysis of TL. Interesting. Well, I think let's all be patient and see what they come back with, because I have a pretty good feeling. Uh, so word leak that another eight TL deaths had happened, and more than 300 injuries had occurred at DuPont's Deepwater plant. Sure. I think Delaware. Yeah. Yeah. Just because, uh, the problem is still totally there. No, it's fine. Right. Okay. Didn't matter. In January 1926, the task force released its report. It concluded there was,

quote, no danger posed by adding TL to gas, quote, no reason to prohibit the sale of lead to gasoline as long as workers were well protected during the manufacturing process. Uh, there's, but one downside, uh, men's dicks get a lot bigger. So that's the only thing. Yeah. Uh, they become better at that. But outside of that, there's nothing. So they learn how to use them better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know they're better lovers in general, but if you guys aren't into that, then, you know, just pick it up. You don't want good, good love making for men. That's fine. No, it's fine. So at that point, lead was pretty much here to stay. I mean, a lot of other stuff happened, but

lead was in. Well, we had a task force. Yeah. Yeah. Who overturned the, uh, reality of lead. So Midgeley was then reassigned to the subsidiary company Frigidaire. Oh God. Oh, what? What's he going to do over there? Well, they wanted to make people die at the fridge. Will you help Tom? How can we kill more people refrigerators? Well, I think we make a freezer out of lead and we make a lot of these areas out of lead and instead of a butter area, it's a lead zone. They wanted him to find a substitute refrigerant for cooling systems. Okay. At the time, refrigerators and air conditioners use coolants that were highly unstable chemical vapors that occasionally caught on fire. Okay. Well, let's go lead. Let's go lead. That's not good for a fridge.

That's not good. It could catch on fire. Let's kill the people at the fridge. Uh, refrigeration systems kill the handful of people a year. Okay. So let's get that number way up. That's a low number. So what do you, can we get that into the millions? Is that, do you think that's doable? Or is that just the kind of a dream? In 1928, Midgeley and his team developed the world's first chlorofluorocarbon, CBC, a stable mix of chlorine, fluorine and carbon. It was marketed under the trade name Freon. Okay. It was non-toxic and non-flammable, so leaks couldn't kill you or the refrigerator wouldn't explode. Dave. Which is great. We don't want refrigerators to explode. Dave. It's time for you to be positive. Dave, I'm worried that this man has looked in the face

of a good solution before and walked away. I'm a little nervous. Also, Freon was non-toxic, non-flammable. A lot of great things. He held the press conference. I've discovered. He took a mouthful of Freon and blew out a candle. Okay. This guy needs to just start actually feeling like people believe his opinion or something. I don't know what's going on. He's lying. If you're lying on this level, it's a level. It does protect too much. Okay. He also dropped a lit match onto the gas. All right. And now to drink it and put a lit match in my mouth while I also put my head inside of a lion's mouth. Huh? You guys think of this? I'm not sure what these things are anymore, but I'm a bit of a showman. I'm really feeling myself

here. The morning call wrote, Thomas said, quote, the fumes in large quantity produce a queer intoxication accompanied by a sozomotic jerking of the muscles, sobering up in the case of animals tested. He said his rapid, a dog staggering from the fumes sobered up in less than a minute. Monkeys and dogs breathing the stuff seven or eight hours daily for weeks develop some resistance to the, some resistance to the drunken effects. I just, so there's a Freon dog party going on. Terrible for the dog and monkey. You ever done whippets? You ever done whippets? It's kind of what the dogs are doing. Eight hours. I've never done eight hours of whippets. I'll say that. It's great. No, I bet it really loses its charm. Freon began to be put in air conditioners and was soon the

refrigerant of choice. By 1950, more than 80% of American homes had a refrigerator. Freon was beginning to be used as a propellant in aerosol cans. It seemed like a godsend. Freon, though, was bad. Okay. When chlorofluorocarbon gets into the atmosphere, it is hit with ultraviolet rays, and it goes through a series of chemical reactions that break CVCs down to a chlorine atom. A chlorine atom then reacts with an ozone molecule and breaks ozone apart and destroys it. So the chlorine atom can also repeat this process. It doesn't break down. A single CVC molecule can destroy 100,000 ozone molecules. Okay. So essentially, you are now just making chlorine fridges? I mean, it's not the fridges and chlorine. It's when it gets into the air.

Sure, but you're essentially making chlorine vapors. You're able to keep your meat cold for a longer time. Also, the sun is going to kill you. Also, nature's decided to have a little fun with what your system is. Turns out there's an ozone layer surrounding the planet that protects us from harmful rays. Well, we can. Thomas probably didn't know this because he had no formal training in chemistry. He was just a mechanical engineer. But he ate a fridge at one of his press conferences. Yeah. I will now eat this fridge. It's good for you. Oh, Jesus. Thomas received many awards, including the priestly medal, the highest honor given by the American Chemical Society. He was given two honorary degrees. He was elected chairman of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Oh my

God. During World War II, Thomas served as head of one branch of the National Defense Research Committee. He conducted extensive research to develop new synthetic rubbers. But then he got polio during the war. He was left unable to use his legs and was in constant need of help. His final invention was a system of pulleys and ropes that helped him to get in and out of bed. On November 2nd, 1944, he died of asphyxiation after his own invention strangled him to death and became tangled around his neck. What? He died at 55. What the fuck? The dude three-stooged himself to death? What? He did. He three-stooged himself to death. That, when that goes wrong, when you're like, it's perfect. I'm getting in and out. But when you're like caught in here,

I'm like, oh no, this will look really bad. Yeah. So 55 years old. At the time of his death, he was considered one of the nation's most prominent. Well, he did die doing what he loved. He did. Lying. He was one of the prominent scientists in the country when he died. He couldn't have known the effect Freon would have on the atmosphere, but he certainly knew the effects of lead. Obviously, lead was phased out of gasoline beginning in 1975 and was pretty much out of the market by 1986. But it was not eliminated because of its toxicity. It was removed from gasoline because it messed up catalytic converters. Of course. It's bad business. We'll have to recall some cars.

And then there's a study. So it's a study that is, like it's hard. It's not a study that you can say that's absolutely. It's one of those. So violence was terrible. And then as lead was taken out. They went down. Violence went down dramatically. So the violence in the 70s is insane compared to like the 90s. Right. Boy, that's weird. Just in all of society. We're getting back.

Yeah. In 1973, CVCs were detected in the atmosphere. And in 1984, scientists discovered a recurring springtime Antarctic ozone hole. The Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987. Doesn't that feel like an adorable problem we want to have now? I remember we were just like, there's a hole in the ozone. I mean, people were totally freaked out about it. I remember. But then also three years later, everyone got together and signed a thing to get rid of it. Everyone was like, okay, let's stop doing this. And everyone was like, yeah, that's a good idea.

Yeah. Dupont agreed to reduce and eliminate CVC production. So in this case, Dupont, which is a really horrible company, still better than the Koch brothers. Right. And Exxon and Shell and all the ones that knew exactly what was happening. Starting in the 70s. The worldwide production of CVCs was totally phased out by 2005. Although three factories in China were just recently discovered.

It was like pouring out of their factories. The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services reported blood lead levels in Americans age one year to 74 years had declined 78%. 78% between 1978 and 1991. When they did study in like 1930, the amount of lead in the dirt on streets had gone up 50%. Well, what is so shady and shitty about the way that companies can poison people is that you don't, and there, and even when there is the, you know, there are like specific evidences, evidence of like, like in the, the Gulf spill and stuff, like people having allergic reactions, like Corexit or the water and stuff. So there are, there are direct correlations.

But then there's also these ones where it's just like, yeah, what does put polluting the environment, putting, having plastic and things that we're now eating, what are the cumulative effects of these that are not going to be something where someone's going to go, oh, it's literally because of this and this person lied about it. It's just like, oh yeah, we just have this stuff in the earth now, maybe. I don't know. Do we, I have cancer. Oh, wow, what's it from? I don't know. Hey, is it good that it's raining, small plastic fibers in Colorado? Is that okay? Is that good? Is that bad? So in this, in this case, the, the planet got together to stop the ozone hole. So

TEL continues to be used. As of 1996, 93% of all gasoline sold in Africa contain lead. 94% in the Middle East, 30% in Asia, 35% in Latin America. 1.7 billion people living in developing nations are in danger of lead poisoning, 90% of which is attributed to lead gasoline. So I mean, it's like fucking DDT, you know, they, they still kept sending it everywhere else or, you know, all that shit. Like, like when we, when we decide in America to stop using company, the companies still make it and they fucking send it to poor countries, like, you know, it's why you need a worldwide socialist movement. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing that I, the thing that I was reading about earlier is the way that companies are, like,

they're going to make protesting illegal. Well, they already are in some places. Yeah. And it's already started in Texas and other places. You can't protest against pipelines. You cannot protest against the fossil fuel industry. And so that is, it's again, it's, I mean, we talk about it. It's like, it never, the stuff that, if you want to get your information from the news, you can't really be watching the person talking on the news. You got to watch the ticker. The ticker has all the stuff that in 10 years is the bad stuff. Yeah. It's just little stuff where it's just like, oh, they got rid of this regulation or they put this person here or, you know, it's just slowly the erosion of the line between oversight versus the monopolies

that are making all the money. And the more that that line erodes and goes away, it's like a joke now. I mean, when you have Rex Tillerson in charge of being the secretary of state, I mean, it's just like, you literally should be in the Hague. Well, I mean, it is just like, you know, there is no oversight to this anymore. And that's why, you know, I think there are a lot of positive signs when it comes to how people are fighting climate change. But this is a thing where it's like the people in charge who actually make decisions have to be the people who are also part of the movement and fighting it. Otherwise, you're going to get people who like we have now. We just had the DNC just decided not to hold the climate change. Deciding to shut it down because

they are making the elites and they are making money and they don't give a fuck about what party you vote for. They just want to keep making their money. Yeah, they really do. So the main sources for this were the secret history of lead by Jamie Lincoln, Kipman on the nation, which is a really long fucking really long sort of just bewildering article about lead. Debra Bum's two part series at the door of the Looting Gas Building in Wired, also the BBC, citylab.com and the Atlantic, why it took decades of letting parents before we banned lead. And again, Flint, actively deciding to put lead pipes in place. And it's not just Flint. No, it's happening all that. Flint story is all over the country. It's just fucking poor people.

And the more that this stuff happens, the more that that water, that poor water that we all don't give a fuck about is going to get into our water. And then we'll be like, oh shit, we should have cared about the poor water. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, I'll be at the bar tonight through tomorrow morning. Drinking away this episode. This is probably the number one requested episode. Oh, that's good. Thomas Mitchell. Oh, that's good. He sounds like a good dude. Yeah, he was good. He just probably killed the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Yeah. And I will say the slight trade off for having a man die from pulleys.

It's pretty great. Min. Gotcha. Yeah. We signed pulleys. Yeah.