Talc Tales: 5. Talc on trial
When we send off make-up for testing, the lab finds an asbestos fibre in two of the samples. Brunel University’s Experimental Technique’s Centre says they need to find at least 3 fibres to confirm the...
5 Aug 202414min
Talc Tales: 4. ‘Time for more confusion’
When talc might be listed as a potential carcinogen, the industry assembles a ‘talc task force’. It’s the year 2000 and the talc industry has heard something big is coming its way. The US government a...
5 Aug 202415min
Talc Tales: 3. ‘We may have problems’
Could companies clean up their talc? In the 1970s, talc companies worked out a plan to check their product for asbestos fibres. The problem was, mineralogist Sean Fitzgerald says the testing method th...
5 Aug 202414min
Talc Tales: 2. Never 100% clean
In the 1970s, a scientist discovers asbestos fibres in talcum powder. After Mineralogist Arthur Langer discovered asbestos fibres in the lungs of normal people in New York, he set out to investigate t...
5 Aug 202415min
Talc Tales: 1. Asbestos in my make-up?
After Hannah Fletcher’s cancer diagnosis, she investigates whether her make up contained asbestos. She was just 41 when she was diagnosed with mesothelioma – a rare cancer that’s very hard to treat. T...
5 Aug 202414min
The Tobacco Playbook: 10. Leaving the Tribe
Our story ends at the very top, with a fax to the White House. The campaign to spread doubt about climate change was so successful, it infiltrated the White House. In 2007, a House of Representatives ...
27 Juli 202014min
The Tobacco Playbook: 9. Deep Pockets, Useful Allies
Following the oil money as it’s pumped to contrarian scientists and think tanks. As millions of dollars flow from oil companies to researchers looking into ‘solar variation’ or picking holes in the ...
27 Juli 202013min
