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Criminal

The Poison Squad

Criminal

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, True Crime

4.739.4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1902, twelve young men volunteered for a government experiment. They agreed to eat food laced with chemicals like formaldehyde, borax, and salicylic acid every day, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They were called The Poison Squad. Deborah Blum’s book is The Poison Squad. Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, invitations to virtual events, special merch deals, and more. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:03.3

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0:22.3

use the offer code criminal to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

0:28.1

Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder

0:34.1

with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other?

0:43.7

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0:51.1

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0:59.0

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1:00.3

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1:10.6

Flower was routinely laced with gypsum, which we use in wallboard.

1:16.8

Spices were sometimes 80 to 90% adulterated.

1:22.0

Brick dust was used in cinnamon.

1:24.1

Floor sweepings were used in pepper.

1:27.0

Ground bone was used in some of the other

1:30.0

ground spices.

1:32.9

Most food historians will tell you that food was one of the top ten causes of death in

1:38.5

the United States in the 19th century.

1:42.0

And medical historians sometimes call it the century of the great American stomachache.

...

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