>> Dr. Terry Simpson: There is a long unfortunate history of

people drinking things they absolutely shouldn't.

From bleach to celery juice, from

detox teas to silver colloids.

It all started maybe a hundred years ago

when the hottest wellness trend was

radioactive water. Yep,

people paid good money to drink radium

and it was sold as a cure for fatigue,

sexual dysfunction, aging, you name it.

I'm Dr. Terri Simpson, your chief medical

explanationist and this is Fork you

fork University, where we make sense of the madness,

bust myths wide open and shine a

clinical spotlight on medical history's biggest

mistakes. Today we're talking about glowing

urine, crumbling jaws and the

radioactive energy drink that almost got away with

it.

In the early 1900s, Murray and Pierre Curie

discovered radium. At first it was hailed

as a scientific miracle. It could shrink tumors,

it could power machines, it glowed in the dark.

What could go wrong? Naturally, the public

didn't wait for peer reviewed studies. Radium

quickly became the next big health fading.

Companies bottled radium infused water

claiming it could boost energy, stimulate

digestion, cure arthritis and even

enhance, well, let's say vitality in

the bedroom. One of the most famous products was

Radiodhor. It came in a sleek glass

vial and promised perpetual

sunshine. Each dose contained

radium 226 and radium 228

in actual drinkable doses.

This wasn't microdosing. This was a one

way ticket to your local radiation ward

and people drank it by the gallon.

Let's talk about Eben Byers. Wealthy

Ivy league athlete,

industrialist, socialite. After

an arm injury, his doctor prescribed Radiathor to help

with his general weakness. He loved it.

He claimed it gave him energy, boosted his

performance and improved his overall health.

So he started taking three bottles a day

for years. But then something

started to happen. His teeth began to fall

out, his jaw deteriorated,

his bones turned brittle and started breaking

and his skull developed holes.

When the Federal Trade Commission finally got involved, he was

literally falling apart. A reporter from

the Wall Street Journal visited him and said the

radium water worked fine until his jaw

came off. By the time of his

death in 1932, his body was

so radioactive he had to be buried in a lead

lined coffin. So what does that have

to do with today? Well, let's look at the formula.

Take a new scientific discovery,

mix in vague health promises, add a

dash of trust in personal testimonials,

skip all the clinical testing, package it with

buzzwords and celebrity hype. Sound

familiar? Today we see the same

cycle play out. Colloidal silver touted as a

cure all even Though it turns people blue.

Alkaline water, which ignores

basic human physiology. Detox

teas, which actually have no detoxifying

ingredients. AI generated

liver scams that paste my face on bottles and

falsely claim that I endorse them. Yes, someone

used my photo to market a fake liver detox

supplement. By the way, they're all fake and claimed

I supported it. I didn't. And it doesn't

actually work because liver cleanses don't

work. Your liver cleanses all by

itself. So Radiothor may be

gone and obvious that it was a problem,

but the con and the basis of the con

lives on. Just now it glows with

artificial intelligence. Instead of radium, we have

people calling themselves like the human biologist

Dr. Gary Breca, who isn't a doctor

who never graduated anything more than a bachelor's in

biology degree and claims he can

predict your actual date of death.

So how did Radiothor get pulled off the market?

Only after Eben buyers died and made headlines did the

US government step in. The Federal Trade

Commission began investigating the so called radioactive

tonics and eventually new regulations from the

FDA started banning untested radioactive

health products. From that point on,

radiation exposure limits became part of public

health policy. And Radiothorpe, it became

a cautionary tale in medical schools and law

books. The irony? Radium does

have real medical uses, like in cancer

treatment, but it's carefully dosed,

precisely targeted and medically

supervised. Radium wasn't the

villain. The villain was selling science without

evidence and letting the public figure out the side

effects one jaw at a time.

We're still doing this. We're still buying

natural products with no testing.

We're still trusting influencers over

physicians. We're still skipping the science

for the story. So the next time someone

says this tonic gave me energy, ask

was it the product or was it Radiothor

all over again?

This episode was researched and written by me, Dr. Terry

Simpson. You can find the blog posts and

references@yourdoctorsorders.com and

4Q com and while I am a doubly

board certified physician, I am not your

physician. If you're tempted by a supplement,

a tonic or an AI generated detox ad using

my face, talk to a real doctor and

a registered dietitian. Not your chiropractor,

not a celebrity with a skincare line, and

definitely not a bottle that cool glows in the dark.

The episode was produced, distributed and all things

audio by Simpler media and the pod got

himself my good friend Mr. Evo

Terra have a bright good

but hopefully not radioactive week.

Hey Evo. If a TikTok guru told you to drink

radioactive water for gut health, Would you wash it down with

a detox tea or just sign up for the next

goop cleanse?

>> Speaker B: Yeah, I'm gonna go none of the above. Uh, on that one?

I think so. Oh, also, very fun and

entertaining episode. Good.