HeyJaredHow Did We Survive?
A show that unpacks wildly unsafe past trends: lawn darts, radioactive health drinks, lead everything.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 5
- Latest publication
- Sep 20, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 16, 2026
Latest episodes
Thalidomide: The Morning Sickness Pill That Changed Medicine Forever (opens the original)
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In 1957, a German pharmaceutical company released what they claimed was the safest sleeping pill ever made—so safe that pregnant women were told it was the perfect cure for morning sickness. Within five years, thalidomide had caused one of the worst pharmaceutical disasters in history, leaving thousands of children born with severe limb deformities and forcing a complete overhaul of drug safety regulations worldwide.
Lead vs. Asbestos: The Battle of History's Deadliest Building Materials (opens the original)
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For decades, two 'wonder materials' were in nearly every home, school, and workplace in America. Lead pipes delivered our water while asbestos insulated our walls—and both industries spent fortunes convincing us they were perfectly safe. Discover how these toxic titans competed for dominance in construction while leaving a body count that spans centuries.
7 Everyday Victorian Products That Could Kill You (opens the original)
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Your great-great-grandmother's wallpaper could literally kill her in her sleep. From arsenic-laced fabrics to mercury-soaked hats, we're counting down seven shockingly toxic products that Victorians kept in every room of their homes. Spoiler: that beautiful green dress wasn't just a fashion statement—it was a death sentence.
The Lobotomy Ice Pick: Dr. Freeman's 10-Minute 'Cure' (opens the original)
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In the 1940s and 50s, one doctor drove across America in a van he called his 'lobotomobile,' hammering an ice pick through patients' eye sockets to scramble their brain tissue. Dr. Walter Freeman promised to cure everything from depression to headaches in just 10 minutes, and became a celebrity for it. Thousands of people—including Rosemary Kennedy—were left permanently damaged before anyone stopped him.
Cocaine vs. Heroin: When Pharmacies Sold Both as Medicine (opens the original)
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Before the FDA, America's most trusted pharmaceutical companies were locked in a marketing war—pushing cocaine and heroin as miracle cures for everything from teething pain to depression. We explore how these two drugs went from doctor-recommended household staples to controlled substances, and the thousands of accidental addicts created along the way.
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