Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Hey Prime members, you can binge episodes 41 through 48 of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries right now and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. In October of 1961, a young mother hit the gas as she tore down a dusty road in Fresno, California. She gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turned white. She glanced into the rearview mirror at her eight-year-old son in the back seat. His skin looked gray and sweat was dripping down his face.
His chest rose and fell quickly as he struggled to catch his breath. Suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head and his entire body went limp. The woman floored the accelerator. They were still several miles from the doctor's office, and her little guy was getting sicker by the minute. She urged him to please hang on as she raced down the road, desperate to get him help before it was too late.
Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, or expert advice, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds and new ways of thinking. Find the genres you love and discover new ones along the way. Explore bestsellers, new releases, plus thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your daily routine without needing to set aside extra time. There's
There's more to imagine when you listen. One of my most recent favorite titles is The Lost City of Z. It's nonfiction, but it totally reads like a thriller. It follows this very famous explorer named Percy Fawcett, who went out looking for this legendary lost city in the Amazon in 1925 and then mysteriously vanished. The writer, David Gran, uses Percy's actual diaries and goes deep into the green hell of the Amazon himself, the actual author, to find evidence of what could have happened to the explorer.
As an Audible member, you can choose one title a month to keep from the entire catalog, including the latest bestsellers and new releases. New members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash ballin or text ballin to 500-500. That's audible.com slash ballin or text ballin to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days. audible.com slash ballin
From Ballin Studios and Wondery, I'm Mr. Ballin, and this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, where every week we will explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies. If you like today's story, please tell the follow button you'll take care of their garden while they're on vacation, but the second they leave, proceed to release 1,000 feral rabbits into their fenced-in yard. This episode is called Dead Tired.
On the morning of October 4th, 1961, Andrea Russo hurried down the hallway of her home in Fresno, California. She rounded the corner into her eight-year-old son Tommy's room and there was Tommy on the floor surrounded by toys. As Andrea expected, her son had not gotten dressed for school yet. Andrea couldn't help but smile. But at the same time, they were running late and there was no time to play right now. So she grabbed some clothes from his dresser and then dropped down onto the floor next to him.
She slipped his favorite red and white striped t-shirt over his head and then unfolded a new pair of blue jeans for him to step into. Then she handed him some sneakers and said, put those on. Andrea jumped to her feet and ran back to the kitchen. There, she grabbed two slices of bread and stuck them in the toaster. And when the toast popped back up, Andrea put the slices on a plate and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar. Her son's favorite breakfast. With her son's breakfast in one hand, Andrea grabbed Tommy and led him out to the car, his shoes still untied.
She helped her son climb into the back seat and then handed him his toast. As Andrea drove her son to school, she passed by huge fields of lush farmland where tomatoes, barley, and almonds were growing. She saw a small helicopter hovering over one farm, raining clear liquid down onto the crops below. Andrea knew the plane must be spraying the field with pesticides. For her, this was a familiar scene. Fresno was an agricultural town.
But when Andrea turned around and looked into the back seat to check on Tommy, she saw him staring at the helicopter with wide eyes, shoving the last bites of cinnamon sugar toast into his mouth. He'd seen large industrial spraying machines before, but this helicopter was new and interesting.
Andrea continued down the road away from the farm. She pulled up outside Tommy's elementary school just as the bell was ringing. She helped him out of the back seat, gave him a hug, and told him to have a good day. She watched him run inside, nearly tripping over his shoelaces. Then Andrea got back in her car and headed home.
A few hours later, Andrea was in the laundry room folding Tommy's clothes when the telephone rang. She ran to the living room and picked up the call, and it was Tommy's teacher. The teacher sounded very concerned. She said that something seemed very off about Tommy.
Normally, he was always smiling and paying attention in class. But today, he'd been acting totally lethargic all morning. Instead of being involved in the lessons, he just kind of stared into space with his eyes glazed over. And when it was time for recess, he didn't even want to go outside. Andrea was surprised. Her son had seemed perfectly fine that morning, and he would never skip recess, even if he had a cold or a stomach ache. So she knew he must be feeling really sick. She told the teacher she'd be there to pick him up soon.
Andrea hung up the phone, grabbed her keys, and drove straight to the elementary school. As soon as she pulled up to the curb, she saw Tommy trudge out the front door. He dragged his feet with each step. He hadn't even bothered to put his backpack onto his shoulders. He just pulled it on the ground right behind him. When Tommy made it to the car, he crawled into the back seat and closed his eyes without saying a word. Andrea asked if he was okay, but all Tommy did was shake his head, "No."
Andrea had never seen her son like this before. Andrea worried that Tommy was more than just tired, so she called Tommy's pediatrician as soon as she got home. Luckily, the doctor could see them right away. At the pediatrician's office, a receptionist led them into an examination room and said the pediatrician would be there soon. Andrea helped her son up onto an exam table covered with a thin sheet of paper. She held his shoulders and looked into his eyes. They were glassy and unfocused.
As soon as she let go of his shoulders, he laid down sideways on the exam table and shut his eyes. Andrea didn't know if she should wake him up or let him rest. But before she could decide, the doctor knocked softly on the door and then came into the room. The doctor was an older man with dark hair, the same pediatrician Tommy had had since he was a baby.
Andrea was relieved to see a familiar face. She told the doctor about her son's sudden exhaustion that day and how his teachers were very concerned about him. Then she gently shook Tommy's shoulder and gradually he sat up.
The pediatrician gave Tommy a quick examination. He checked the 8-year-old's pulse, his blood pressure and temperature. He looked down the boy's throat and shined a light in his eyes. Then he turned to Andrea and said that all of Tommy's vital signs seemed normal. He didn't think there was anything to worry about. Tommy was probably just tired, so she should take him home and let him rest.
Andrea hesitated. Tommy had never acted like this when he was just tired, so she had a nagging suspicion that something else might be going on here. But at the same time, she wanted to believe this doctor, so she ultimately just followed his advice. Andrea brought Tommy back out to the car and drove home. About 20 minutes later, she pulled into their driveway and walked around the car to help her son out of the backseat.
However, when she opened the back door of the car, Tommy didn't even open his eyes. Andrea asked Tommy if he was okay, but he seemed confused, like he could barely form a thought. He was even more out of it than he had been earlier.
Very concerned, Andrea got into the front seat and sped right back to the doctor's office. She parked her car, grabbed Tommy out of the back seat, and carried him inside. It had been less than an hour since they'd left, and the receptionist looked confused to see them again. But Andrea told her that they needed to see the doctor again right now. This was an emergency. The receptionist nodded and ran to get the doctor.
But then suddenly Tommy blurted out that he had to use the bathroom and he got up and ran to the restroom so quickly that Andrea couldn't keep up. Tommy flung open the door and slammed it shut. From outside in the hall, Andrea could hear her son retching. Tommy vomited and then he had diarrhea. When he came out of the bathroom, he looked absolutely miserable.
By this point, the doctor had come out into the waiting area. He and Andrea helped Tommy walk to the exam room and as soon as they got inside, Tommy collapsed onto the table, barely conscious. The doctor's eyes went wide. He raced over to Tommy and checked his vitals again. Then he turned to Andrea and told her Tommy's heart rate was extremely high. She asked him what was wrong and he just shook his head. He had never seen anything like this before.
But the doctor did say he knew someone who might be able to help. His name was Dr. John Conrad, and he was the leading pediatrician in the Fresno area, and he specialized in pediatric allergies. If anyone could identify what was causing Tommy's rapid decline, it was him. The doctor rushed out of the room to call Dr. Conrad, leaving Andrea alone with Tommy. Andrea felt so helpless. Her son was becoming desperately ill, and she couldn't do anything except watch as his eyelids fluttered and he struggled to breathe.
Across town, Dr. John Conrad held the phone against his ear and jotted down the symptoms Tommy's pediatrician described. Dr. Conrad was an older man with white hair and clear-rimmed glasses. He'd spent many years practicing pediatric medicine and felt like he'd seen it all already. And as he eyed the list of symptoms he had just jotted down, he actually immediately came up with a theory about Tommy's illness.
He suspected that the 8-year-old might have type 1 diabetes and could be on the verge of falling into a diabetic coma. Type 1 diabetes usually shows up during adolescence, but it can strike younger children too, and the symptoms can arise very suddenly. People with diabetes can't properly digest sugar, and so something as simple as eating a sugary breakfast or going too long without a snack can send them spiraling toward a diabetic coma.
Dr. Conrad told the pediatrician to send Andrea and Tommy to the Valley Children's Hospital in Fresno, and he would meet them there. Dr. Conrad then immediately called that hospital and asked the staff to be ready to test Tommy for diabetes as soon as he and his mother arrived. Then Dr. Conrad ran out to his car and made his way to the hospital.
Valley Children's Hospital was a single-story brick building that was lined with trees. When Dr. Conrad walked inside, a nurse with a long ponytail and blue scrubs approached him. The nurse told him that Andrea and Tommy were already there and the diabetes test that Dr. Conrad had requested had come back. The results were negative, meaning whatever was happening to Tommy was not type 1 diabetes. And that wasn't all.
As they walked towards Tommy's room, the nurse said they'd run other blood tests in addition to checking for diabetes. Now, most had come back normal, but Tommy's white blood cell count was extremely high, which meant his body was clearly fighting off something. Dr. Conrad thought about this. Most likely, Tommy was fighting off an infection, maybe in his intestinal tract, that would explain the vomiting and diarrhea. Dr. Conrad felt like he might be onto something, but he would need to examine Tommy himself to figure out more.
Tommy was curled up in the hospital bed when Dr. Conrad came in. His mother hovered over him looking totally exhausted and terrified. When she saw Dr. Conrad come in, she ran over, clasped his hand, and said how happy she was to see him. The doctor could feel the young mother's fear in her handshake, and it made him even more determined to get to the bottom of Tommy's illness as quickly as possible.
Tommy almost looked like he was sleeping, except that his hands and feet were twitching. Dr. Conrad checked his pulse, and Tommy's heart was still racing. The doctor asked Tommy how he was feeling, but Tommy seemed too confused to even speak. In fact, he could barely even open his eyes. And when he did, Dr. Conrad saw that Tommy's pupils had constricted into two tiny black dots.
The doctor wasn't sure what to make of the muscle twitches and the constricted pupils, but he still thought that Tommy might have an intestinal infection, so he wanted to examine the eight-year-old's abdomen. Dr. Conrad moved the blankets out of the way and very lightly pressed on the boy's belly. And immediately Tommy screamed in agony. The doctor pulled his hand away reflexively. The severity of Tommy's reaction really surprised him, but it also made an intestinal infection seem much more likely.
Dr. Conrad wondered if maybe Tommy had consumed a relatively common bacteria called Shigella that often spreads in places like elementary schools. Thinking this could be the answer, Dr. Conrad asked hospital staff to run a test for Shigella because as soon as they got confirmation that that was what it was, they could begin treating Tommy. But two hours later, Dr. Conrad sat in the hallway outside of Tommy's room and read over the test results. Tommy had tested negative for Shigella infection.
Dr. Conrad shook his head as he reviewed Tommy's symptoms. The boy was pale and feverish with extremely small pupils, his heart rate was abnormally high, his muscles were twitching, and his white blood cell count was elevated. The boy was experiencing confusion and extreme stomach pain. He seemed to be floating in and out of consciousness. Dr. Conrad put all these details together and then he had a deeply unsettling thought. What if this boy has been poisoned? Dr. Conrad took a deep breath.
Tommy's symptoms actually reminded him of a patient he'd once treated. A farmer who'd come down with sudden exhaustion, muscle twitches, and vomiting. That sounded a lot like what Tommy was going through. It turned out the farmer had been poisoned by the organic phosphates in the pesticides he applied to his crops. He had accidentally inhaled some of the chemicals in the process. Dr. Conrad wondered if maybe something similar could have happened to Tommy.
Fresno was, after all, an agricultural community, so it was possible that the 8-year-old could have, in theory, inhaled pesticide by accident. Even a tiny amount would be enough to cause extreme symptoms within just a few hours. Dr. Conrad realized that he needed to act fast. Organic phosphates were powerful poisons. If he didn't give Tommy an antidote quickly, this little boy could die.
Five minutes later, Dr. Conrad rushed back into Tommy's room carrying a syringe that contained a medicine called atropine. The doctor carefully injected this drug into Tommy's arm as the boy lay completely still except for the twitching in his hands and feet. It was the same medication that Dr. Conrad had used with that farmer and he prayed this would work for Tommy too. While they monitored the boy's condition, Dr. Conrad asked hospital staff to run a blood test for organic phosphate poisoning.
A few hours later, around 8:30 p.m., the results of that test came back. Dr. Conrad's hunch was correct. Tommy was suffering from organic phosphate poisoning. The doctor broke the news to Tommy's mother. He was still wondering where exactly the poison had come from, so he asked Andrea if she'd taken her son around any of the local farms recently.
Andrea thought for a moment. She said she always drove by some fields while taking Tommy to school. That very morning, they'd passed a helicopter that was spraying a farm with pesticides, but she and Tommy had been inside the car with all the windows up. She told Dr. Conrad that she didn't understand how that could have made Tommy so sick.
The doctor wasn't sure either. Whatever had happened, it seemed like a freak accident. Pesticide poisonings were actually very rare. What mattered was that Dr. Conrad had acted quickly and the atropine worked perfectly. By 10 pm, Tommy was sitting up in his hospital bed. His color had come back, his muscles had stopped twitching, he was able to have a full conversation with the doctor. Tommy said his stomach pain was gone too, but he still felt really tired.
Dr. Conrad told Andrea it would take a few days in the hospital for Tommy to make a full recovery, but her son would be okay. Then he asked her to schedule a follow-up appointment with him one week after Tommy was discharged. And then Dr. Conrad said goodnight and headed for home, satisfied that he'd solved the mystery.
Six days later, there was no trace of poison left in Tommy's system, and so he was finally healthy enough to go home from the hospital. Andrea packed up their belongings and led Tommy to the parking lot. He skipped along beside her, and instead of talking about his illness or his time in the hospital, he just chatted about his Tonka trucks. When they got in the car, Tommy jumped into the back seat without her help. He was so excited to go home. But despite how energetic her son seemed, Andrea still felt nervous.
She was happy that Tommy was coming home, but she wouldn't feel at ease until the checkup with Dr. Conrad the following week. For the next six days, Andrea did not take any chances. She kept her son at home and resting in bed. She wouldn't let him go to school, play outside, or even leave the house. It actually wasn't until the day of his doctor's appointment the week after that Tommy finally swapped out his PJs for real clothes and finally walked outside. Andrea helped him into the back seat and drove to Dr. Conrad's office.
The white-haired doctor greeted Tommy with a smile. He gave the boy a thorough examination and assured Andrea that her son was doing just fine. When Tommy heard that, he hopped up and tugged on Andrea's arm. She looked down at her son, who had a huge smile spread across his face, and he said he couldn't wait to go back to school and see his friends again. Relieved, Andrea thanked Dr. Conrad and headed back out to the parking lot. Tommy sprinted ahead of her, anxious to get back home.
As Andrea drove through Fresno on the way home, she felt like she could finally breathe. Her son had never been that sick before. Seeing him suffer like that had been terrifying and she hadn't been able to relax until just now when Dr. Conrad promised that really everything was alright. And so now they could finally get back to their normal lives. Andrea turned into her neighborhood, looking forward to a weekend at home before Tommy went back to school. But then her son called out to her from the backseat.
He said his stomach was starting to hurt again. When Andrea turned to look at him, she saw him breathing rapidly, and there were beads of sweat dripping down his forehead. All of Andrea's dread came rushing back. She immediately turned around and sped back to Dr. Conrad's office. As she drove, Andrea repeatedly checked on Tommy in the rearview mirror, watching his condition get worse and worse by the second.
When they were about 10 minutes away, all the color suddenly drained out of Tommy's face. Then his whole body kind of went slack and he slumped over and collapsed onto his side. Andrea slammed on the gas pedal. She could not get to Dr. Conrad's office fast enough. By the time she finally skidded into the parking lot, she was in a complete panic. She didn't even bother to bring her son inside with her. She just got out of the car and sprinted into the doctor's office alone.
A few moments later, Andrea rushed back outside with the doctor and they went to her car and they found Tommy still laying in the back seat, completely still and silent. To Andrea's surprise, Dr. Conrad actually flung open the passenger side door and got inside. And then he told Andrea to get in and drive us to the Valley Children's Hospital. They had no time to waste. Mr. Ballin' Collection is sponsored by BetterHelp.
When your schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, and more, it can be easy to let your priorities slip, even if you know doing so will make you miserable. But when you feel yourself losing control over your time and your sanity, that's when you need to remind yourself that certain priorities are non-negotiable. Things like taking care of your mental health.
That said, I always make sure to step back and spend time away from work with my family or friends. This is because my therapist always stresses how important it is to recharge whenever I can. That way I don't burn out. This is why I think therapy can be so helpful for people whose lives feel very hectic, which is basically all of us. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.
It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash mrballandpod today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash mrballandpod.
Shopify has already taken the cash register online, helping millions sell billions around the world. But did you know they can do the same thing at your retail store? Give your point of sale system a serious upgrade with Shopify.
With Shopify, you get a powerhouse selling partner that effortlessly unites your in-person and online sales into one source of truth. That way, you can track every sale across your business in one place, and you know exactly what's in stock. Shopify also helps you drive store traffic with plug-and-play tools built for marketing campaigns on TikTok, Instagram, and beyond.
And you get the hardware that fits your business. Take payments with your smartphone, transform your tablet into a point-of-sale system, or use Shopify's POS Go mobile device for a battle-tested solution. Plus, Shopify's award-winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash mrballin, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash mrballin to take your retail business to the next level today. shopify.com slash mrballin
Twenty minutes later, Andrea carried her semi-conscious son through the sliding doors of the hospital emergency room. Tommy's head lolled on her shoulder. Dr. Conrad ran beside her and yelled for the nurses to hook the eight-year-old up to an IV. A hospital staff member grabbed Tommy from Andrea's arms and placed him on a gurney. As nurses swarmed around them, Andrea felt her throat tighten with fear. The nurses pushed Tommy's gurney down the hallway, and Andrea chased after them, following them into a hospital room.
Suddenly, she heard her son screaming. His face contorted in pain as the nurses worked to connect an IV. Andrea watched, helpless, while her son began to gag. He tried to lift his head, but he couldn't sit up, and so he vomited just onto the bed. Then, Tommy stopped moving altogether as tears filled his eyes. Andrea didn't understand how or why this was happening again. All she knew was that Tommy's symptoms were even worse than the first time.
Andrea was terrified, but she had never been more thankful for Dr. Conrad. He told hospital staff to make sure they administer more atropine. Andrea stood next to her son's bed and just prayed the atropine would work the way it did the first time. Sure enough, a few hours later, Tommy was awake and his stomach pain had subsided. He asked for a glass of water and when a nurse brought it in, he was able to reach out and grab it.
Tommy wasn't confused anymore, he could move his limbs, so clearly the atropine had saved his life again. Andrea was obviously extremely relieved that her son had pulled through, but as she sat beside his hospital bed, she couldn't help but feel sick to her stomach. Clearly, something was poisoning her son, but if she didn't know what it was, how could she protect him? How could she make sure this did not happen a third time or more?
Andrea noticed Dr. Conrad packing up his black bag to leave. Before he left, she pulled him aside and asked him for his help. She needed to know where this chemical poisoning was coming from. If it really was from a local farm like Dr. Conrad thought, then Andrea wanted to know exactly which one. That way, they could tell the farmer to please contain the poison and put a stop to this nightmare.
When Dr. Conrad got home that evening, he sat down on his couch and made a list of every farm in the area. He picked up the phone off the side table and started calling them one by one. He asked if they'd recently sprayed any organic phosphate pesticides on their crops. They all told Dr. Conrad the same thing: no. There was not a single farmer in Fresno who had sprayed organic phosphates in the last few weeks.
Dr. Conrad crossed the last farm off his list and hung up the phone. He was baffled. If the poison wasn't from a farm, where else could Tommy have come in contact with it? The doctor spent the entire evening pacing in his living room, racking his brain for another answer. He eventually went to bed, hoping he'd be able to come up with a plausible theory in the morning. But he woke up just as confused. As he crawled out of bed and started a pot of coffee, he had to admit that he needed help.
Dr. Conrad sat back down on the couch and placed his coffee mug on the side table right next to the telephone. Then he picked up that telephone and he called the Fresno County Public Health Department and told them the whole story. There was a little boy suffering from repeated pesticide poisonings for no clear answer as to how he was being exposed to the deadly chemicals.
The health department official asked some follow-up questions, like what Tommy had been doing before he became ill, and Dr. Conrad didn't really have all the answers, but he explained that the previous afternoon, he had examined Tommy and given him a clean bill of health. Then, before the boy even made it back to his home, he became gravely ill again. His symptoms had appeared in less than an hour, and all Tommy had done was ride in the backseat of his mother's car.
But that little detail of the boy riding in his mother's car caught the health department representative's attention. They assured Dr. Conrad they would get to the bottom of this, beginning with a thorough inspection of Andrea's vehicle. Later that morning, a man and a woman from the Fresno County Public Health Department knocked on Andrea's front door. Andrea shook their hands and welcomed them inside, but before she could say how happy she was to see them, they started asking questions. Did she keep any kind of chemical poisons in the house?
Had she ever used ant or roach poison inside? Did she have a garden, and if so, did she treat her plants with pesticides? Andrea just shook her head. She didn't know of anything in her home or her car that could possibly be poisoning her son. She led the health department employees into her garage where her car was parked, and she watched them search every inch of her vehicle. After a few minutes, they came up empty-handed. Then they combed through the rest of her garage, but again, they didn't find anything.
That only left one other option: the inside of Andrea's house. So Andrea opened the door for the investigators and told them to go ahead. As they searched, Andrea sat on the living room couch and called the hospital to check in on Tommy, who had been admitted to that hospital. The nurse would tell her that her son was stable and improving steadily. Andrea felt very relieved and placed the phone back on the hook.
For the next hour, Andrea listened as the man and woman from the health department combed her entire house looking for the poison. But when they came into the living room where Andrea was, she asked them, what have you found? And they would tell her, nothing. There wasn't anything in her home, in her car, her garage, her garden, anywhere that could explain her son's poisoning. Andrea was totally crushed. But the two health department employees said they did have one more idea.
They asked Andrea what her son had been wearing when he got sick. Andrea thought about it for a moment. The first time Tommy got sick, he had been wearing his favorite red and white striped t-shirt and a new pair of blue jeans and sneakers. The second time, he'd been wearing a different shirt, different shoes, but the same pair of blue jeans.
They were actually in the laundry room in a pile of dirty clothes. She'd brought them home from the hospital, but she hadn't had a chance to wash them yet. When she said that, the investigators' eyes lit up. They told Andrea they needed those jeans right now. Those pants just might hold the answers to her son's illness. Later that afternoon, Dr. Conrad stood in a white-walled lab at the Fresno County Health Department laboratory wearing gloves and a face mask.
Next to him, the health department investigators who had just searched Andrea's home gazed into a rectangular glass tank full of hundreds of buzzing mosquitoes. Dr. Conrad held Tommy's blue jeans in his gloved hand. When the investigators gave him the okay, he lifted the lid on the tank and quickly put the jeans inside and then shut the lid before any mosquitoes could escape. Fifteen minutes later, the buzzing had stopped. The lab was silent. Dr. Conrad looked over and saw the two investigators grinning.
That's when he realized this was the breakthrough they needed. Every single mosquito inside of that glass tank was now dead. And Tommy's pants had killed them. It would turn out Tommy's own genes were the things that were poisoning him. They were loaded with toxic organophosphates. Now Dr. Conrad had new questions. Where had these genes come from? And how did they become laced with pesticide? He used the health department laboratory's phone to call Andrea and explain the results of the experiment.
He could tell by her voice that she was both very surprised and also very relieved, and luckily she was actually able to explain the jeans. She said she'd bought those jeans about a month earlier in September. A trucking company was having a salvage sale for damaged goods and happened to have some nice jeans in Tommy's size. The pants were so cheap that Andrea actually bought five pairs of them, although Tommy had only worn one pair so far.
Dr. Conrad told Andrea that it was highly likely that all of the jeans she had purchased were poisoned, so Tommy should obviously never wear them again. That's when Andrea pointed out that she actually did not buy every pair of jeans at the salvage sale. She said there had still been an entire stack of them after she had left with her five pairs.
Dr. Conrad suddenly felt his heart start to race. This story wasn't over. There were more poison genes out there right now and so more children might get sick. Dr. Conrad hung up the phone and rushed back over to the investigators so they could try to figure out what to do next. Over the following weeks, Dr. Conrad and the Fresno County Public Health Department learned that the poison genes had been shipped eight months earlier in early 1961.
They were put in a truck alongside various chemicals, including a highly toxic organic phosphate pesticide called phosdrin. During a trip from Fresno to Los Angeles, a container of phosdrin had broken open, and over a gallon of the poison spilled onto a stack of jeans. Enough poison to kill 9,000 kids.
When the truck finally got to Los Angeles, an employee brought the jeans to a store where they were supposed to be sold. But the manager of that store had noticed the pants were covered in oily-looking stains, so they sent them back to Fresno.
The poisoned jeans were stored in a warehouse for the next eight months until it was time for the trucking company's annual salvage sale. By then, the stains on the jeans had faded enough that customers didn't notice them. When Dr. Conrad and the health department contacted this trucking company, it was too late. The remaining pairs of the poisoned jeans had all been sold. The health department immediately went out and alerted the public to this crisis. And soon they received 11 more pairs of jeans that had all been bought at the salvage sale.
So that made 16 pairs, including the jeans Andrea had bought. In total, one other boy was hospitalized from these poisonous genes, and four other children also fell ill. But luckily, like Tommy, all the children who were affected by these poisonous genes made full recoveries. One month later, California lawmakers introduced a bill to ban the shipment of dangerous chemicals alongside food or clothing.
Tighter legal restrictions and higher industry standards have since made accidents like the one that poisoned Tommy much less common. From Ballin Studios and Wondery, this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, hosted by me, Mr. Ballin.
A quick note about our stories: we use aliases sometimes because we don't know the names of the real people in the story. And also, in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, but everything is based on a lot of research. And a reminder: the content in this episode is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
This episode was written by Karis Allen Pash Cooper. Our editor is Heather Dundas. Sound design is by Matthew Cilelli. Coordinating producer is Sophia Martins. Our senior producer is Alex Benidon. Our associate producers and researchers are Sarah Vytak and Tasia Palaconda. Fact-checking was done by Sheila Patterson.
For Ballin Studios, our Head of Production is Zach Lebbitt. Script Editing is by Scott Allen and Evan Allen. Our Coordinating Producer is Matub Zare. Executive Producers are myself, Mr. Ballin, and Nick Witters. For Wondry, our Head of Sound is Marcelino Villapondo. Senior Producers are Laura Donna Pallavoda and Dave Schilling. Senior Managing Producer is Ryan Lohr. Our Executive Producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis for Wondry.
Welcome to the offensive line. You guys, on this podcast, we're going to make some picks, talk some s**t, and hopefully make you some money in the process. I'm your host, Annie Agar.
So here's how this show's going to work, okay? We're going to run through the weekly slate of NFL and college football matchups, breaking them down into very serious categories like No offense. No offense, Travis Kelsey, but you've got to step up your game if Pat Mahomes is saying the Chiefs need to have more fun this year. We're also handing out a series of awards and making picks for the top storylines surrounding the world of football. Awards like the He May Have a Point Award for the wide receiver that's most justifiably bitter.
Is it Brandon Ayuk, Tee Higgins, or Devontae Adams? Plus, on Thursdays, we're doing an exclusive bonus episode on Wondery+, where I share my fantasy football picks ahead of Thursday night football and the weekend's matchups. Your fantasy league is as good as locked in. Follow the offensive line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can access bonus episodes and listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
