The Rise of the Guinea Pigs

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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: One of my favorite podcasts is called This Week in

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Speaker 2: Virology TWIV, as it's known.

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Speaker 3: This Week in Virology, the podcast about viruses, the kind

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Speaker 3: that make you sick.

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Speaker 2: On the show, a prominent virologist named Vincent Racaniello has

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Speaker 2: a weekly chat with colleagues from around the country, updating

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Speaker 2: their listeners on the latest news from around the world

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Speaker 2: about microbes. TWIV is a very big deal. It's the

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Speaker 2: tonight show only for virologists. For my birthday, my friend

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Speaker 2: Charles got me a twift shirt, which I'm wearing right now.

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Speaker 2: TWIF has taught me more about science than almost anything

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Speaker 2: I can remember, and one of their most memorable episodes

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Speaker 2: is called I Love the Smell of Vaccines in the Morning.

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Speaker 3: Many people sent this to us asking our thoughts, and

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Speaker 3: so there you go, We're going to give you our thoughts.

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Speaker 2: I Love the Smell of Vaccines in the Morning came

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Speaker 2: out in the winter of twenty twenty two. The Twivers

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Speaker 2: wanted to talk about a study that had just been

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Speaker 2: published entitled Safety, Tolerability and Viral Kinetics during tsar's COVID

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Speaker 2: two Human Challenge.

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Speaker 4: This is a.

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Speaker 3: Study where you deliberately infect human volunteers under very carefully

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Speaker 3: controlled conditions. They're under hospital care, they're isolated. Right, You've

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Speaker 3: got anti virals and monoclonals at the ready should anything happen.

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Speaker 2: The Human Challenge trial had thirty six unvaccinated subjects, all

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Speaker 2: between the ages of eighteen and twenty nine, all volunteers

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Speaker 2: who agree to be infected with COVID in a concentrated

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Speaker 2: dose administered to the nasal cavity. The aim of the

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Speaker 2: study was to figure out a crucial bit of information

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Speaker 2: that was still unknown in the early days of the pandemic.

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Speaker 2: How large a dose of covid do you have to

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Speaker 2: be exposed to before you get infected.

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Speaker 3: Sars kov two is not without risk. I mean it's

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Speaker 3: not a bolah, right, but it's not common cold either.

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Speaker 2: The TWIF crew went on for close to two hours

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Speaker 2: about the study, comb through every detail, went on fascinating digressions,

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Speaker 2: looked for insights and inconsistencies, and all came to the

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Speaker 2: same conclusion.

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Speaker 3: I would love to have been privy to the discussions

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Speaker 3: that led up to the approval of this to see

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Speaker 3: what they're thinking, right, Yeah, because I have to say

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Speaker 3: I wouldn't be in favor of this because if one

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Speaker 3: person dies, that's the end of it, and that person's

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Speaker 3: family is pretty upset.

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Speaker 1: Pretty upset, I would say, very upset. It's difficult because

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Speaker 1: when you look at the paper and you see results, okay,

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Speaker 1: and nobody died, nobody even got really sick, I mean

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Speaker 1: really sick. Okay, when you look at it from that

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Speaker 1: point of view, you go, oh wow, this is great.

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Speaker 2: My name is Malcolm Golbwell, you're listening to Revisionist History,

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Speaker 2: my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This is part

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Speaker 2: two of our examination of the Minnesota starvation experiment. Part

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Speaker 2: one was about what happened when ansel keyes invited a

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Speaker 2: group of young men to spend a year in a

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Speaker 2: dingy set of rooms under the University of Minnesota football stadium.

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Speaker 2: This episode is about the strange way that so many

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Speaker 2: scientists think about the morality of human experiments, like, for example,

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Speaker 2: the experiment described in the twelve episode I Love the

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Speaker 2: Smell of Vaccines in the morning. When the crew at

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Speaker 2: This Week in Virology start talking about the experiment, they

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Speaker 2: sound reasonable.

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Speaker 1: There was very careful consideration given by the authors and

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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other people as to whether they

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Speaker 1: turned it ethical. So no matter what we might think, okay,

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Speaker 1: there are a whole bunch of people who thought that

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Speaker 1: this was just fine.

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Speaker 2: That's Rich Condent of the University of Florida, another of

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Speaker 2: the twive mainstays. Medicine is typically in the business of

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Speaker 2: trying to make sick people healthy, but there's no question

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Speaker 2: that you can learn more by making healthy people sick.

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Speaker 2: Making healthy people sick means you can study your disease

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Speaker 2: from the very beginning, as opposed to the point where

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Speaker 2: the patient shows up in your office. It means you

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Speaker 2: can choose exactly the kind of disease you want to study,

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Speaker 2: the precise strain of virus, the exact species of bacteria.

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Speaker 2: You can choose who you want to study, young people,

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Speaker 2: old people, world class marathoners, the thin, the overweight. You

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Speaker 2: can compare different treatments easily and cheaply. But when you

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Speaker 2: go from healthy to sick, you have a big ethical problem.

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Speaker 2: The hippocratic oath all physicians take says first, do no harm.

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Speaker 2: So how can you justify infecting healthy people with a

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Speaker 2: potentially deadly virus.

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Speaker 1: If I were confronted personally with whether or not to

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Speaker 1: launch or support this study, I'm not sure I would

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Speaker 1: do it.

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Speaker 2: Then Brian Barker, a virologist at Drew University, chimed.

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Speaker 5: In, Yeah, I was trying to imagine if I was

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Speaker 5: in this age group, would I.

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Speaker 6: Be interested in being in the study.

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Speaker 4: And my answer was absolutely not.

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Speaker 2: The more they talked about it, the more adamant the

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Speaker 2: Twig crew became.

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Speaker 3: I would not have approved this. If I were on

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Speaker 3: the committee, I would have voted no. At some point,

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Speaker 3: there's going to be a young person who seems perfectly healthy.

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Speaker 3: There's got something we don't know about and is going

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Speaker 3: to die here. And that's what I'm concerned about. And

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Speaker 3: I don't know how. I'm sure these people don't know

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Speaker 3: anything we don't know, all right. I don't know how

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Speaker 3: they can sleep at night.

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Speaker 2: Now, why are we spending so much time on the

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Speaker 2: issue that Twivers had with this obscure COVID study, Because

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Speaker 2: the Minnesota starvation experiment was exactly the same kind of

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Speaker 2: human challenge trial ancil Keys took thirty six perfectly healthy

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Speaker 2: young men and made them sick by starving them for months.

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Speaker 2: A study like that should raise a million red flags, right.

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Speaker 2: The Minnesota starvation experiment ran during the final year of

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Speaker 2: the Second World War, and the subjects were all drawn

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Speaker 2: from the pool of men who had refused military service

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Speaker 2: conscientious objectors. They were about seventy two thousand and registered

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Speaker 2: conscientious objectors in the United States during the Second World War.

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Speaker 2: Some served in the military in non combat roles. Others

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Speaker 2: chose alternative service and were put to work fighting forest

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Speaker 2: fires or staffing hospitals.

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Speaker 7: They did social work in the Deep South. They worked

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Speaker 7: as orderlies in state mental health facilities. Many of them

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Speaker 7: were digging ditches and grading roads and doing things that

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Speaker 7: simply couldn't be defined as work of national importance.

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Speaker 2: That's the historian Sarah Tracy who's been researching the Minnesota

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Speaker 2: starvation experiment.

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Speaker 7: Conscientious Objectors had been used as medical guinea pigs, and

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Speaker 7: the US Civilian Public Service and Selective Service learn about this,

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Speaker 7: and so there is this program that about seven hundred

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Speaker 7: of the twelve thousand conscientious objectors who were doing work

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Speaker 7: of national and importance, so called work of the national importance,

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Speaker 7: about seven hundred of them enroll in medical experiments all

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Speaker 7: around the country.

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Speaker 2: Among the researchers who used human guinea pigs was ansel Keys.

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Speaker 2: He's testing the effects of thiamine deficiency and needs willing

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Speaker 2: to test subjects for a long term study in his lab.

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Speaker 2: Why not these religious pacifists.

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Speaker 7: He writes away, and he gets several about eleven to

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Speaker 7: do vitamin experiments, and that goes very well. He's impressed

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Speaker 7: by these conscientious objectors. They're dedicated, they're committed, they're excellent

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Speaker 7: research subjects.

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Speaker 2: It's from this pool of volunteers that Keys draws the

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Speaker 2: first of the subjects for his starvation experiment. Now, if

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Speaker 2: you want to make healthy people sick, you have to

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Speaker 2: be completely sure that your subjects are acting autonomously, to

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Speaker 2: use the word favored by ethicists, meaning did the subjects

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Speaker 2: make their decision to join the experiment freely, without pressure

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Speaker 2: or constraint. Were they informed of all the consequences? Did

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Speaker 2: they fully understand what they were getting into? The NYU

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Speaker 2: bioethicist Art Kaplan says, it's hard for scientists now to

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Speaker 2: find an easy answer to those questions when it comes

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Speaker 2: to the starvation experiment.

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Speaker 8: Bioethicists like me have tended not to comment much on

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Speaker 8: this study. It's interesting, this is such a difficult case

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Speaker 8: that I think people they've steered away from it a

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Speaker 8: little bit.

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Speaker 2: What makes the case so difficult is a keys of

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Speaker 2: study was conducted in the middle of a world war.

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Speaker 2: His subjects were all men who would refuse to fight

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Speaker 2: Nazis in Europe, and because of that they were subject

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Speaker 2: to intense social pressure. People called them cowards, shirkers, morally bankrupt.

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Speaker 2: Doors were slammed in their faces. And so along comes

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Speaker 2: Ansel Keys, charismatic ansel Keys, Ansel Keys with a two

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Speaker 2: hundred point IQ score, and he says, would you like

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Speaker 2: to be part of a medical experiment that makes a

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Speaker 2: difference that erases the sin of your absence from the war? Well,

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Speaker 2: of course they're going to say yes. So is that

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Speaker 2: an autonomous decision or is that a coerce decision? In

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Speaker 2: the previous episode, we heard how one of the volunteers,

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Speaker 2: Sam Legg, chopped off some of his fingers with an

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Speaker 2: axe in the delirium of his starvation. And then as

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Speaker 2: he lay in his hospital bed, leg begged Ansel Keys

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Speaker 2: to let him stay in study. Remember what he told Keys, doctor,

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Speaker 2: for the rest of my life people are going to

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Speaker 2: ask me what I did during the war. This experiment

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Speaker 2: is my chance to give an honorable answer to that. Question.

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Speaker 2: That does not sound like a rational, autonomous decision. That

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Speaker 2: sounds like someone who's terrified to go back to his

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Speaker 2: hometown and tell I'm sorry, I've now failed my country twice.

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Speaker 2: As for the second test of autonomy, did the subjects

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Speaker 2: know what they were getting into? Did they fully understand

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Speaker 2: the consequences of their participation? Of course not. That's the

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Speaker 2: whole lesson of the testimony from the eighteen volunteers in

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Speaker 2: the Library of Congress. They thought they would be hungry.

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Speaker 2: They didn't understand that starvation could cause him to start

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Speaker 2: losing their moral bearings. Sam Legg remembered one day when

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Speaker 2: he was out walking and saw a boy whiz by

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Speaker 2: on his bicycle.

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Speaker 9: How very brief I hope it was brief moment I

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Speaker 9: suddenly hated that that boy, and that I hate at

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Speaker 9: this point to tell you this, because it doesn't speak

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Speaker 9: very well for me.

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Speaker 2: Legg was a committed pacifist, a deeply spiritual man. Did

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Speaker 2: he consent to that feeling when he signed up? He's

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Speaker 2: still ashamed of it half a century later.

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Speaker 4: Frankly, I was amazed or shocked by the study.

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Speaker 2: That's so hard. Letterman, a bioethicist who teaches at the

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Speaker 2: Rohmbam Medical Campus in Israel, and it's one of the

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Speaker 2: few people in his field to have written about the

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Speaker 2: Minnesota starvation experiment. Letterman's big problem is with the notion

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Speaker 2: that the subjects quote unquote volunteered.

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Speaker 4: We served is ready serving the army as well. And

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Speaker 4: we have a joke about volunteering for something. You don't

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Speaker 4: volunteer in the army, you get volunteered, right, And we

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Speaker 4: even have a special ward for it in Himbrew.

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Speaker 2: Only in Israel is there a special word to describe

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Speaker 2: the condition of volunteering without actually volunteering being volunteered.

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Speaker 4: So I suspect that in that environment. And again I'm not,

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Speaker 4: you know, not an historian. They don't know what it

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Speaker 4: was like during that time in the early forties in

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Speaker 4: the US. But I think we need to be worthy

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Speaker 4: of any assumption of voluntariness in that context.

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Speaker 2: Letterman's point is, if an experiment isn't truly voluntary, how

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Speaker 2: do we justify making the subjects suffer?

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Speaker 4: If it's minimal harm, you give them diarrhea. I mean,

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Speaker 4: you can say, okay, that's fine, that's nothing, But if

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Speaker 4: that means that they start chewing gums, showing a bubble

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Speaker 4: gum all day long, or cutting off their fingers, or

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Speaker 4: developing neurosis or developing kidney failure, or two people developed

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Speaker 4: kidney failure because of the study. I think at that

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Speaker 4: point you should say, no, that's enough. Regardless of the

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Speaker 4: potential benefits. There are some things we cannot do.

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Speaker 2: There are some things we cannot do. This is exactly

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Speaker 2: where the Twitters ended up as well in their discussion

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Speaker 2: of the COVID infection study. Remember what Vincent Racanello said.

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Speaker 3: I'm sure these people don't know anything. We don't know,

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Speaker 3: all right. I don't know how they can sleep at night.

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Speaker 10: Now.

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Speaker 2: Am I happy that scientists cared deeply about the ethical

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Speaker 2: implications of their field, of course, But there's something I

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Speaker 2: don't quite understand about the arguments used by those who

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Speaker 2: worry about human jallenge trials. Listen to this exchange, for example,

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Speaker 2: the twive crew are digging deeper and deeper into the

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Speaker 2: details of the COVID infection experiment and which condit starts,

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Speaker 2: reading to the fine print on the studies design.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that they apparently started out

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Speaker 1: by soliciting volunteers with an online application and got twenty

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Speaker 1: seven thousand responses.

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Speaker 2: Wait, the people who ran that study didn't have to

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Speaker 2: trick people to get them to side, or go to

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Speaker 2: some out of the way prison and use inmates as

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Speaker 2: guinea pigs. No, twenty seven thousand people looked around them

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Speaker 2: at the millions of people dying from COVID and said,

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Speaker 2: I'm willing to take that risk, to make that sacrifice

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Speaker 2: for society. There was a line out the door, down

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Speaker 2: the block and clear across town.

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Speaker 11: They were coming to us saying, we're in the middle

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Speaker 11: of a pandemic.

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Speaker 2: I called up Andrew Catchpull, the British virologist who led

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Speaker 2: the COVID infection study.

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Speaker 11: They came to us with phrases like they just wanted

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Speaker 11: to do their bit for the pandemic. They felt that

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Speaker 11: this was something that they could do to help. So

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Speaker 11: it was really heart warming actually to see that.

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Speaker 2: Now, you would think that if you were a virologist

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Speaker 2: on the biggest virology podcast in the world trying to

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Speaker 2: figure out the ethics of a particular study, then this

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Speaker 2: kind of information would matter. That if you're worrying about consent,

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Speaker 2: then that kind of overwhelming enthusiasm should maybe make you

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Speaker 2: a little less worried. So, like any loyal Twive listener,

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Speaker 2: I waited for the rest of the crew to start

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Speaker 2: talking about the implications of the twenty seven thousand volunteers.

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Speaker 2: I waited and waited for the Twivers to make sense

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Speaker 2: of this and crickets. The conversation just moved on.

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Speaker 1: All right.

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Speaker 3: So after the screening, they're admitted to individual negative pressure

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Speaker 3: rooms in a quarantine unit twenty four hour monitoring their

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Speaker 3: screen for other respiratory infections using what's bulderbio.

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Speaker 2: Vincent Racanello might as well admit a big w with

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Speaker 2: his fingers. Whatever, the fact that twenty seven thousand people

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Speaker 2: signed up to get infected with COVID has apparently made

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Speaker 2: no impression at all on these virologists. Human challenge trials

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Speaker 2: are a problem to scientists. Let me read to you

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Speaker 2: from a paper that appeared early in the pandemic in

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Speaker 2: p and As Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,

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Speaker 2: which is about as prestigious as scientific journals get. The

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Speaker 2: paper was written by a group of America's leading medical ethicists.

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Speaker 2: They're talking about the same general question that was discussed

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Speaker 2: on the TWIB episode. Should people be allowed to volunteer

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Speaker 2: to be deliberately infected with COVID. In this case, they're

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Speaker 2: talking about deliberate infection for testing potential COVID vaccines. They

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Speaker 2: give you the experimental vaccine, then they expose you to

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Speaker 2: COVID to see if it works, and the risk, of

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Speaker 2: course is that if it doesn't work, you'll get sick. Now,

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Speaker 2: if you volunteer to be a COVID guinea pig in

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Speaker 2: an experiment like that, I'm assuming you understand what you're

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Speaker 2: getting into. But the famous ethicists, in their paper in

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Speaker 2: the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences begged to differ.

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Speaker 2: Here's what they wrote. Despite acknowledge in consent forms that

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Speaker 2: participants may not experience direct benefits from the experimental intervention,

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Speaker 2: it is entirely possible that volunteers may labor under a

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Speaker 2: quote preventive misconception that they will receive some protection from

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Speaker 2: infection by their participation. That's a lot of gobbletgook. So

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Speaker 2: let me translate for you. You can tell the guinea

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Speaker 2: pig that this vaccine is experimental, that it hasn't been tested,

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Speaker 2: that we don't know yet whether it works, but there

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Speaker 2: is at least a theoretical possibility that one of those

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Speaker 2: guinea pigs are going to misunderstand what's going on, And

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Speaker 2: the possibility of that misapprehension means that you should never

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Speaker 2: ever try an experiment like that. I'll be honest. When

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Speaker 2: I read that paper, I got a little puzzled. I mean,

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Speaker 2: what would it take to make these bioethesists happy? What

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Speaker 2: if we screened and vetted and sifted and sorted through

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Speaker 2: every one of the people who volunteered, picking out only

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Speaker 2: the select few who we thought really and truly understood

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Speaker 2: what was going on? Would that make them happy? What

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Speaker 2: if we only pick people with graduate degrees, or ones

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Speaker 2: with IQs over one hundred and fifty, or ones willing

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Speaker 2: to run a ten thousand word essay describing exactly what

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Speaker 2: they think they're getting into. Would that make them happy?

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Speaker 2: Or would they still be like? I don't know. I

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Speaker 2: think it's entirely possible that volunteers may labor under a

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Speaker 2: preventative misconception. So even as this pandemic rages all around us,

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Speaker 2: let's not do anything at all. Now, how are they

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Speaker 2: so sure of this? Did they debrief anyone who've been

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Speaker 2: part of a vacting challenge trial. No, they didn't. I

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Speaker 2: want to talk a little bit more about the men

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Speaker 2: who volunteer and their motivations and how we judge them

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Speaker 2: in retrospect. I brought this issue up with the bioethicist

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Speaker 2: Zohar Letterman when we were discussing the Minnesota Starvation Experiment,

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Speaker 2: and I'm wondering, when it comes to assessing the risks

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Speaker 2: and benefits of a study like this, shouldn't what the

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Speaker 2: subjects think matter? You're not interested in subjects.

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Speaker 1: I think.

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Speaker 4: I think in research ethics, as BIOasis, as policy makers,

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Speaker 4: we can only listen to what people want up to

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Speaker 4: a certain point when it comes to unnecessary harms. When

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Speaker 4: it comes to the ethics per se of a certain

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Speaker 4: policy or certain study, there comes a point when you

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Speaker 4: no longer need to listen to the voices, but you

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Speaker 4: just have to go on the ethics of it.

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Speaker 2: Actually, no, I think we should listen to the voces.

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Speaker 2: Eighteen of the surviving members of the starvation experiment left

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Speaker 2: oral histories behind about their experience. On first listen, what's

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Speaker 2: striking about them is what the men went through their pain.

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Speaker 2: But if you listen more closely, you hear something else.

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Speaker 12: Why were you a craciential subjector.

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Speaker 13: Well, because in when I was in high school, I

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Speaker 13: became acquainted with a fellow by the name of Jesus

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Speaker 13: of Nazareth, and I thought he was a pretty good guy,

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Speaker 13: and I liked what he said, and I liked the

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Speaker 13: way he lived and the way he handled situations with

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Speaker 13: other human beings.

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Speaker 9: I couldn't imagine Jesus. I couldn't visualize him in the

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Speaker 9: uniform of a US army or any kind of an army.

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Speaker 9: It just didn't fit. And so I basically said, well,

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Speaker 9: if he couldn't do what, I can't do it.

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Speaker 2: The interviewer asked everyone the same question, why wouldn't you fight?

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Speaker 2: And each man gives a version of the same answer.

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Speaker 12: Why were you a conscientious objector?

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Speaker 14: I'm not going to kill anybody, and I don't want

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Speaker 14: anyone to kill me.

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Speaker 12: God put us on his earth.

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Speaker 14: And as the only one that has a right to

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Speaker 14: take us away.

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Speaker 2: These were not people who dodged the draft out of

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Speaker 2: cowardice or indifference. These were deeply moral people from religious

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Speaker 2: traditions like the Quakers or the Mennonites or the Brethren,

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Speaker 2: that had principled theological objections to war that go back

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Speaker 2: hundreds of years.

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Speaker 5: So you know, on the most basic level, why were

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Speaker 5: you a conscientious objector?

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Speaker 14: Well, I don't believe in killing people under any circumstances.

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Speaker 2: Conscientious objectors had many ways to serve during the war,

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Speaker 2: but it becomes clear listening to their accounts that the

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Speaker 2: issue for them was not what is the easiest or

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Speaker 2: most convenient way to fulfill my wartime obligation. It was

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Speaker 2: what is the most useful way for me to help

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Speaker 2: alleviate human suffering. That's why some of them volunteer to

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Speaker 2: work as research subjects in ansel Keys's lab. They want

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Speaker 2: to do more than dig ditches or work as hospital orderlies.

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Speaker 2: So did they suffer during the starvation experiment? Of course

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Speaker 2: they did, but that doesn't make the experiment immoral. Listen

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Speaker 2: to Sam leg again, the man who chopped off his

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Speaker 2: own fingers in the delirium of malnourishment. Many decades later,

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Speaker 2: this is what he has to say.

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Speaker 9: Everybody else around us is pulling down the world. We

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Speaker 9: want to build it up. We want to be of service.

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Speaker 9: Here was an obvious opportunity for us to be of service.

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Speaker 2: You cannot form a legitimate opinion on the ethics of

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Speaker 2: what happened in Minnesota. Unless you willing to listen to Sandleg.

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Speaker 9: Now immediately you'll say, oh, come on, you are a

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Speaker 9: Jesus freak, which I will agree to. And so you

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Speaker 9: were going to emulate Jesus. How well have you done it?

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Speaker 9: And I say, that's none of your business on this

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Speaker 9: one issue of this aspect of Jesus, I've done it.

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Speaker 9: Never mind the rest, but that stock that was important

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Speaker 9: to me.

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Speaker 2: When ensel Keys retired, he was interviewed by a colleague

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Speaker 2: of his at the University of Minnesota. At one point

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Speaker 2: they talk about the starvation experiment.

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Speaker 14: There's evidence coming all around. At the end of the war,

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Speaker 14: would see a lot of problems and people have been

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Speaker 14: semi starved, especially in northern countries. So I went to

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Speaker 14: the certain general's office and mentioned this, said we ought

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Speaker 14: to get some evidence on it and what happens when

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Speaker 14: people are starved. And then so the network others of him,

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Speaker 14: being an experimentalist, proposed to carry out an experiment, and

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Speaker 14: we've got the authorization to have conscientious objectors.

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Speaker 2: The net result is that I propose that we carry

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Speaker 2: out an experiment, and we got the authorization to have

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Speaker 2: conscientious objectors. Ansel Keys, the Great Genius, wanted the world

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Speaker 2: to know that the starvation experiment was his idea, But

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Speaker 2: like so many other things about that study, the truth

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Speaker 2: is more complicated. It goes back to Ansel Keys's earlier

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Speaker 2: experiments with wartime volunteers, the experiments on vitamins.

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Speaker 7: The conscientious objectors who are working in Keys's lab realize

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Speaker 7: that this is a military experiment, that in fact, what

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Speaker 7: he's doing is testing different rations that will have military applications,

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Speaker 7: and they object to that because it has a military application.

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Speaker 2: Sarah Tracy, the historian writing a biography of Keys. When

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Speaker 2: she was researching her book, she stumbled across correspondence among

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Speaker 2: Keyes's volunteers in the early years of the war. The

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Speaker 2: men were concerned that Keys's work was being funded by

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Speaker 2: the War Department, which made them, in their own eyes,

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Speaker 2: complicit in the war effort.

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Speaker 7: Another idea comes to them, why don't we design our

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Speaker 7: own experiment. We can design an experiment that we want

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Speaker 7: to do that will be of peacetime value, and then

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Speaker 7: we'll get our home churches to pay for it.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't realize that.

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Speaker 7: Nobody's realized that nobody's realized that.

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Speaker 2: Sarah Tracy discovered that we've gotten the origin story of

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Speaker 2: the starvation experiment backwards. Here's what actually happened. A group

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Speaker 2: of volunteers approached the National Service Board religious objectors. They

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Speaker 2: make a proposal. They point out that even if peace

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Speaker 2: breaks out, the war is still going to leave millions

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Speaker 2: of people starving and malnourished. What if we conducted an

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Speaker 2: experiment to figure out how to help them. The Service

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Speaker 2: Board likes the idea and funds it, and the volunteers

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Speaker 2: take that idea and the grant money to answer keys.

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Speaker 7: They wanted to give relief, and if they couldn't go

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Speaker 7: abroad to give relief, then they could use science to

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Speaker 7: determine how that relief should be given.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so beautiful. And now so they come up

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Speaker 2: with this idea. How do they phrase the idea that

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Speaker 2: we will we will starve our sounds and then see

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Speaker 2: what the best study, the best means of bringing ourselves

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Speaker 2: back to help.

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Speaker 7: Yes, yes, so the people who write the recruitment brochure

436
00:27:58,876 --> 00:28:02,716
Speaker 7: are the conscientious objectors themselves, the vitamin conscientious objectors. Right,

437
00:28:02,756 --> 00:28:08,076
Speaker 7: those religious pacifists are doing the lion's share of legwork.

438
00:28:08,316 --> 00:28:10,756
Speaker 7: When it comes to writing the recruitment brochure?

439
00:28:10,876 --> 00:28:11,916
Speaker 2: How did you find that out?

440
00:28:12,116 --> 00:28:15,956
Speaker 7: I found it by going to the Swarthmore College Peace

441
00:28:16,036 --> 00:28:19,876
Speaker 7: Collection and combing through all their records.

442
00:28:20,476 --> 00:28:23,396
Speaker 2: The brochure said, will you starve that they may be

443
00:28:23,396 --> 00:28:26,876
Speaker 2: better fed? With a picture of children overturning their bowls

444
00:28:27,396 --> 00:28:29,316
Speaker 2: in hopes of finding one last grain of rice.

445
00:28:29,756 --> 00:28:32,956
Speaker 7: I mean, they arrived in Key's lab and within a

446
00:28:33,076 --> 00:28:37,516
Speaker 7: month or so they're publishing their own newsletter right called

447
00:28:38,356 --> 00:28:41,996
Speaker 7: It's Oh, the Guinea Pig Gazette. They published The Guinea

448
00:28:41,996 --> 00:28:42,876
Speaker 7: Pig Gazette.

449
00:28:43,036 --> 00:28:47,196
Speaker 2: Okay Keyes published his mammoth report on the Starvation experiment

450
00:28:47,236 --> 00:28:50,796
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty years after the war was over, but

451
00:28:50,916 --> 00:28:54,716
Speaker 2: the volunteers published their findings almost immediately so it could

452
00:28:54,796 --> 00:28:56,916
Speaker 2: be of use in the chaos after the war ended.

453
00:28:57,396 --> 00:29:01,076
Speaker 2: A little book called Men in Hunger, a psychological Manual

454
00:29:01,116 --> 00:29:05,116
Speaker 2: for relief workers. The cover shows a kindly middle aged

455
00:29:05,116 --> 00:29:07,996
Speaker 2: man shaking the hand of a gaunt European against a

456
00:29:08,076 --> 00:29:12,956
Speaker 2: blighted landscape. The Minnesota experiment was not something Ansel Keys

457
00:29:13,036 --> 00:29:17,636
Speaker 2: did to the volunteers. It was something to volunteers chose

458
00:29:17,676 --> 00:29:22,316
Speaker 2: to do to themselves. Not everyone who suffers as a victim.

459
00:29:22,676 --> 00:29:25,036
Speaker 2: If we are at the point where we don't understand

460
00:29:25,076 --> 00:29:28,956
Speaker 2: that fact, where we have a moral vocabulary for victimhood

461
00:29:29,356 --> 00:29:32,916
Speaker 2: and none for self sacrifice, then God help us.

462
00:29:33,636 --> 00:29:36,956
Speaker 9: If you could turn the clock back and be back

463
00:29:36,956 --> 00:29:40,356
Speaker 9: in nineteen in nineteen forties, would you participate in the

464
00:29:40,356 --> 00:29:40,996
Speaker 9: study again?

465
00:29:41,356 --> 00:29:43,116
Speaker 12: Yeah, without hesitation.

466
00:29:44,236 --> 00:29:46,316
Speaker 3: There was a very sign never got event in my life,

467
00:29:47,516 --> 00:29:47,996
Speaker 3: very much.

468
00:29:47,996 --> 00:29:50,756
Speaker 15: So if you, if you had to make the decision

469
00:29:50,796 --> 00:29:54,276
Speaker 15: to participate again or not, what would you do again?

470
00:29:54,316 --> 00:29:57,676
Speaker 9: I enthusiastically say yes I would, and I think humanity

471
00:29:57,716 --> 00:29:59,396
Speaker 9: has been improved, and I'm glad I did it.

472
00:30:00,716 --> 00:30:02,436
Speaker 15: We knew, we knew it wasn't going to be easy.

473
00:30:02,436 --> 00:30:03,876
Speaker 15: We didn't know how hard it was going to be,

474
00:30:03,916 --> 00:30:08,276
Speaker 15: but we we knew it was not going to be easy,

475
00:30:08,596 --> 00:30:14,356
Speaker 15: and we were prepared to suffer, and we suffered. And

476
00:30:14,396 --> 00:30:18,916
Speaker 15: as far as someone taking advantage of us or mistreating us,

477
00:30:20,476 --> 00:30:23,756
Speaker 15: absolutely no feelings like that at all, no resentment of

478
00:30:23,796 --> 00:30:24,316
Speaker 15: any kind.

479
00:30:25,076 --> 00:30:25,436
Speaker 1: Nothing.

480
00:30:26,196 --> 00:30:28,116
Speaker 4: And I get that you could turn the clock back,

481
00:30:28,156 --> 00:30:29,716
Speaker 4: would you participate again?

482
00:30:29,916 --> 00:30:30,516
Speaker 1: Sure?

483
00:30:31,876 --> 00:30:32,356
Speaker 5: You bet you.

484
00:30:33,596 --> 00:30:35,876
Speaker 9: If you could turn the clock back, would you participate

485
00:30:35,956 --> 00:30:36,796
Speaker 9: in the study again?

486
00:30:37,916 --> 00:30:41,796
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm very happy that I did. It's one of

487
00:30:41,796 --> 00:30:42,996
Speaker 2: the things that I'm proud of.

488
00:30:44,276 --> 00:30:46,116
Speaker 15: Would you do you think you would make the same

489
00:30:46,116 --> 00:30:47,276
Speaker 15: decision to participate?

490
00:30:48,836 --> 00:30:50,796
Speaker 8: Yes, I would.

491
00:30:51,916 --> 00:30:53,116
Speaker 12: No regrets.

492
00:31:00,396 --> 00:31:03,316
Speaker 2: Next time. On revisions History, the story of one more

493
00:31:03,396 --> 00:31:06,556
Speaker 2: person who starved for a year so others might be fed.

494
00:31:07,196 --> 00:31:09,756
Speaker 12: He had a good life, He would say, he had

495
00:31:09,796 --> 00:31:11,436
Speaker 12: a good life.

496
00:31:11,396 --> 00:31:14,116
Speaker 2: And what happened to him and his family after that

497
00:31:14,236 --> 00:31:14,796
Speaker 2: year ended.

498
00:31:15,236 --> 00:31:18,756
Speaker 12: But he paid a price for what he believed, and

499
00:31:18,796 --> 00:31:24,796
Speaker 12: he kept paying that price his whole life.

500
00:31:30,556 --> 00:31:34,036
Speaker 2: Revisionist History is produced by Elwise, Linton Leeman Gestu, and

501
00:31:34,116 --> 00:31:38,556
Speaker 2: Jacob Smith, with Tolly Emlin and Harrison VJ. Choi. Our

502
00:31:38,676 --> 00:31:42,516
Speaker 2: editor is Julia Parton. Our executive producer is Miel Label.

503
00:31:43,036 --> 00:31:46,916
Speaker 2: Original scoring by Luis Kara, mastering by Flon Williams, and

504
00:31:46,996 --> 00:31:50,836
Speaker 2: engineering by Nina Lawrence. Beth Johnson is our fact checker.

505
00:31:51,196 --> 00:31:55,076
Speaker 2: Special thanks also to Ariela Markowitz for production help on

506
00:31:55,116 --> 00:32:18,356
Speaker 2: this episode. I'm Malcolm Glawell.

507
00:32:27,436 --> 00:32:31,916
Speaker 4: Much about connection. I mean kaenno trigatur.

508
00:32:33,076 --> 00:32:36,676
Speaker 2: If you target towns and cities, it's as clear as

509
00:32:36,796 --> 00:32:42,436
Speaker 2: day that there will be civilian victims. In nineteen forty five,

510
00:32:42,916 --> 00:32:46,076
Speaker 2: the US firebomb Tokyo, destroying a quarter of the city

511
00:32:46,396 --> 00:32:50,156
Speaker 2: and killing more than one hundred thousand people. I wrote

512
00:32:50,156 --> 00:32:54,636
Speaker 2: about this infamous bombing campaign in my audiobook The Bomber Mafia,

513
00:32:54,796 --> 00:32:57,276
Speaker 2: and one of the survivor's voices we Hear is from

514
00:32:57,316 --> 00:33:02,156
Speaker 2: a project called Paper City. Paper City is now out

515
00:33:02,436 --> 00:33:08,116
Speaker 2: as a groundbreaking feature documentary director Adrian Francis explores what

516
00:33:08,156 --> 00:33:12,236
Speaker 2: we choose to remember and hope to forget. To find

517
00:33:12,236 --> 00:33:17,516
Speaker 2: out more, visit papercityfilm dot com and follow at Paper

518
00:33:17,516 --> 00:33:26,916
Speaker 2: City Tokyo on social media. Hey Revision's history listeners, I'm

519
00:33:26,996 --> 00:33:29,836
Speaker 2: capping off this episode with a preview of a new

520
00:33:29,876 --> 00:33:33,156
Speaker 2: Pushkin show that really has me hooked. It's called Death

521
00:33:33,156 --> 00:33:35,636
Speaker 2: of an Artist. Death of an Artist has all the

522
00:33:35,676 --> 00:33:40,436
Speaker 2: elements of a gripping story, a suspicious death, a tumultuous relationship,

523
00:33:40,636 --> 00:33:44,036
Speaker 2: a murder trial, questions of morality, feminism, power and balance,

524
00:33:44,356 --> 00:33:47,996
Speaker 2: and a divided our world. On September eighth, nineteen eighty five,

525
00:33:48,156 --> 00:33:51,756
Speaker 2: up and coming artist Anna Mendietta fell from the thirty

526
00:33:51,836 --> 00:33:55,556
Speaker 2: fourth floor window of her husband and famous sculptor Karl

527
00:33:55,636 --> 00:34:01,156
Speaker 2: Andre's apartment. Host Helen Molesworth asks was Karl Andre involved?

528
00:34:01,676 --> 00:34:05,076
Speaker 2: You'll revisit on his untimely death. The trial that followed

529
00:34:05,276 --> 00:34:08,516
Speaker 2: and both the protests and silence that have followed this

530
00:34:08,596 --> 00:34:12,276
Speaker 2: story ever since. Okay, here comes a sneak peek. You

531
00:34:12,276 --> 00:34:14,876
Speaker 2: can follow the story by searching for Death of an

532
00:34:14,956 --> 00:34:17,596
Speaker 2: Artist wherever you get your podcasts.

533
00:34:18,716 --> 00:34:24,196
Speaker 6: It's May nineteen seventy three, Iowa City. There's a damp

534
00:34:24,316 --> 00:34:26,996
Speaker 6: chill in the air. We are on a sort of

535
00:34:27,116 --> 00:34:30,276
Speaker 6: shabby block in front of a brick apartment building with

536
00:34:30,316 --> 00:34:32,716
Speaker 6: a white door in need of a paint job, and

537
00:34:32,756 --> 00:34:38,596
Speaker 6: a storefront window with its blind strawn shut. The sidewalk

538
00:34:38,716 --> 00:34:41,636
Speaker 6: just in front of the door is covered in blood,

539
00:34:43,076 --> 00:34:45,836
Speaker 6: and it looks like the blood might be seeping out

540
00:34:45,916 --> 00:34:50,716
Speaker 6: from under the door jam. It's a busy weekday, and

541
00:34:50,756 --> 00:34:53,796
Speaker 6: as pedestrians pass the puddle of blood, they notice it

542
00:34:53,916 --> 00:34:57,796
Speaker 6: and casually step around it. Eventually, a man in a

543
00:34:57,836 --> 00:35:01,996
Speaker 6: green and black plaid jacket pauses and looks around as

544
00:35:02,036 --> 00:35:06,996
Speaker 6: if looking for an explanation. When none comes, he walks away.

545
00:35:07,836 --> 00:35:10,796
Speaker 6: Then a well dressed white woman uses her umbrella to

546
00:35:10,836 --> 00:35:13,716
Speaker 6: poke at the bloody puddle, but after a moment or

547
00:35:13,756 --> 00:35:19,276
Speaker 6: two of inspection, she also walks away. Finally, an older

548
00:35:19,356 --> 00:35:23,556
Speaker 6: gentleman emerges from a nearby storefront and silently cleans up

549
00:35:23,556 --> 00:35:27,876
Speaker 6: the mess, and the evidence of whatever happened is suddenly gone,

550
00:35:28,596 --> 00:35:31,916
Speaker 6: and with it disappears any account of whose blood was

551
00:35:31,956 --> 00:35:39,636
Speaker 6: spilled and how. The whole scene is being captured by

552
00:35:39,716 --> 00:35:43,596
Speaker 6: two young women in their twenties, sisters, who sit in

553
00:35:43,596 --> 00:35:47,276
Speaker 6: an old car park nearby. One of them holds a

554
00:35:47,316 --> 00:35:50,196
Speaker 6: super eight camera, the kind you'd make home movies with

555
00:35:50,356 --> 00:35:54,236
Speaker 6: back then the other snaps photos with a thirty five

556
00:35:54,316 --> 00:36:00,596
Speaker 6: millimeter camera. They are Anna and Raklein Mendietta, Cuban refugees

557
00:36:00,756 --> 00:36:08,836
Speaker 6: who landed in this unlikely place as children in nineteen

558
00:36:08,836 --> 00:36:11,996
Speaker 6: seven three. Anna was a first year MFA student at

559
00:36:12,036 --> 00:36:16,916
Speaker 6: the University of Iowa. She was funny, loud, outrageous and

560
00:36:16,996 --> 00:36:20,316
Speaker 6: had to take no prisoner's vibe, and in the way

561
00:36:20,316 --> 00:36:23,276
Speaker 6: of sisters, she had roped direct clean into helping her

562
00:36:23,316 --> 00:36:26,516
Speaker 6: make a new piece, and like many works on a maid,

563
00:36:27,036 --> 00:36:29,996
Speaker 6: it would come to seem tragically prophetic in the wake

564
00:36:30,036 --> 00:36:30,596
Speaker 6: of her death.

565
00:36:32,516 --> 00:36:39,276
Speaker 10: She basically staged what looked like the remnants of, you know,

566
00:36:39,316 --> 00:36:42,476
Speaker 10: physical violence with what looked like blood in the doorway

567
00:36:42,516 --> 00:36:45,476
Speaker 10: of a building, and I thought it was extremely powerful

568
00:36:46,116 --> 00:36:49,196
Speaker 10: for a very young artist to be doing that, and

569
00:36:49,236 --> 00:36:52,636
Speaker 10: to be doing it in this small, largely white town

570
00:36:52,676 --> 00:36:55,116
Speaker 10: of Iowa City was fascinating to me.

571
00:36:56,156 --> 00:36:59,036
Speaker 6: That's Connie Butler, one of the many curators who would

572
00:36:59,036 --> 00:37:01,836
Speaker 6: come to admire and study on A Mendieta's work in

573
00:37:01,876 --> 00:37:05,756
Speaker 6: the decades that followed. The photos in film the Mendieta

574
00:37:05,836 --> 00:37:08,836
Speaker 6: sisters took that day would ultimately become a work of

575
00:37:08,956 --> 00:37:11,516
Speaker 6: art called Moffat Building Piece.

576
00:37:12,436 --> 00:37:14,596
Speaker 10: The fact that it still exists only in these little

577
00:37:14,636 --> 00:37:17,596
Speaker 10: thirty five millimeters slides, which you know you have to

578
00:37:17,596 --> 00:37:21,156
Speaker 10: get very close to with a loop, and it's a

579
00:37:21,236 --> 00:37:25,236
Speaker 10: very intimate way of viewing these things, you know, that

580
00:37:25,316 --> 00:37:27,476
Speaker 10: implicates you as a view were too, almost as if

581
00:37:27,476 --> 00:37:29,316
Speaker 10: you are yourself looking at a crime scene.

582
00:37:30,516 --> 00:37:33,636
Speaker 6: Anna's interest in blood wasn't only meant to shock. She

583
00:37:33,796 --> 00:37:37,756
Speaker 6: was keenly aware of violence and injustice. When she made

584
00:37:37,756 --> 00:37:41,476
Speaker 6: the Maffat Building Piece, she was investigating her own community's

585
00:37:41,556 --> 00:37:45,196
Speaker 6: reaction to a brutal crime, a rape and murder that

586
00:37:45,276 --> 00:37:48,716
Speaker 6: had happened on campus a few months before. Here's how

587
00:37:48,756 --> 00:37:50,356
Speaker 6: she explained her inspiration.

588
00:37:51,436 --> 00:37:54,716
Speaker 5: A young woman was killed, raped and killed at Iowa

589
00:37:55,116 --> 00:37:57,836
Speaker 5: in one of the dorms, and it just really freaked

590
00:37:57,836 --> 00:38:01,076
Speaker 5: me out. So I did some of rape performances type

591
00:38:01,116 --> 00:38:05,036
Speaker 5: things at that time, using my own body, I did

592
00:38:05,116 --> 00:38:08,636
Speaker 5: something I believe in and that I felt I had

593
00:38:08,676 --> 00:38:08,916
Speaker 5: to do.

594
00:38:09,716 --> 00:38:13,036
Speaker 6: That's not actually an A Mendieta's voice you're hearing. That

595
00:38:13,276 --> 00:38:16,876
Speaker 6: was Tanya Brighera, another artist from Cuba who you'll hear

596
00:38:16,916 --> 00:38:26,236
Speaker 6: from more later. Anamandieza's question was could you make art

597
00:38:26,396 --> 00:38:30,636
Speaker 6: about something so awful? And she used blood, not paint.

598
00:38:31,196 --> 00:38:34,516
Speaker 6: Blood is the most essential substance of life. Could it

599
00:38:34,636 --> 00:38:38,356
Speaker 6: jolt people out of their daily routines? Could blood make

600
00:38:38,396 --> 00:38:42,636
Speaker 6: people pay attention? She didn't know it yet, but the

601
00:38:42,676 --> 00:38:45,916
Speaker 6: Moffat Building piece was about to be her first major artwork,

602
00:38:46,636 --> 00:38:50,356
Speaker 6: and in a circular way, that's kind of terrifying. The

603
00:38:50,476 --> 00:38:54,676
Speaker 6: question she asked about how we react when we encounter

604
00:38:54,796 --> 00:38:58,836
Speaker 6: the residue of violence. This question would haunt all of

605
00:38:58,916 --> 00:39:05,996
Speaker 6: us after she died. I'm your host Helen Mulesworth and

606
00:39:06,036 --> 00:39:10,876
Speaker 6: from Pushkin Industries, Something Else and Sony Music Entertainment. This

607
00:39:11,116 --> 00:39:28,356
Speaker 6: is Death of an Artist Episode one. The haunting For

608
00:39:28,476 --> 00:39:31,436
Speaker 6: my entire professional life, I've been a member of something

609
00:39:31,476 --> 00:39:37,996
Speaker 6: called the art World, an exclusive network of artists, gallery dealers, curators, collectors,

610
00:39:38,156 --> 00:39:42,076
Speaker 6: and philanthropists for two decades. I was lucky enough to

611
00:39:42,116 --> 00:39:45,076
Speaker 6: be a museum curator, making me one of a small

612
00:39:45,116 --> 00:39:48,836
Speaker 6: group of cultural insiders who determine what art we see

613
00:39:49,196 --> 00:39:52,716
Speaker 6: and how we talk about it. In the museum world

614
00:39:52,876 --> 00:39:55,516
Speaker 6: and in art history, there are a lot of unspoken

615
00:39:55,636 --> 00:39:58,596
Speaker 6: rules about what you can say publicly and what is

616
00:39:58,636 --> 00:40:02,756
Speaker 6: supposed to stay private. It turns out I wasn't that

617
00:40:02,836 --> 00:40:06,076
Speaker 6: good at sticking to the script, and I guess I'm

618
00:40:06,116 --> 00:40:08,556
Speaker 6: still not good at it, because I'm going to tell

619
00:40:08,596 --> 00:40:11,876
Speaker 6: you on A and Dietta's whole story all the way

620
00:40:12,196 --> 00:40:19,236
Speaker 6: to its shocking and troubling end, and much to my surprise,

621
00:40:19,676 --> 00:40:22,556
Speaker 6: I discovered it's a story many of my colleagues in

622
00:40:22,596 --> 00:40:30,076
Speaker 6: the art world would prefer I didn't tell at first, blush.

623
00:40:30,836 --> 00:40:32,956
Speaker 6: It seemed like people didn't want me to talk about

624
00:40:32,996 --> 00:40:35,516
Speaker 6: it because of who else is part of that story.

625
00:40:35,996 --> 00:40:40,876
Speaker 6: Anna's husband, the famous sculptor Carl andre He is one

626
00:40:40,916 --> 00:40:44,356
Speaker 6: of the so called fathers of minimalism, a cultural hero

627
00:40:44,516 --> 00:40:49,276
Speaker 6: to many are revered artists with lots of connections, and

628
00:40:49,316 --> 00:40:56,076
Speaker 6: he was a suspect in Anna's death. Even though Carl

629
00:40:56,116 --> 00:40:59,796
Speaker 6: Andrea and Anna Mendieta were a highly visible art world couple,

630
00:41:00,836 --> 00:41:04,076
Speaker 6: even though something terrible happened between them the night she died,

631
00:41:04,636 --> 00:41:06,836
Speaker 6: you will not read about it on a museum wall

632
00:41:06,916 --> 00:41:10,636
Speaker 6: label or in most art history text book reviews of

633
00:41:10,676 --> 00:41:13,156
Speaker 6: their exhibitions tend to take care of it in a

634
00:41:13,196 --> 00:41:17,236
Speaker 6: sentence or two. You would not know that Mendieta's death

635
00:41:17,396 --> 00:41:20,756
Speaker 6: divided the art world in nineteen eighty five, and in

636
00:41:20,796 --> 00:41:29,236
Speaker 6: many ways still does. I'm not the first person to

637
00:41:29,276 --> 00:41:32,396
Speaker 6: try and tell this story. In fact, many of the

638
00:41:32,476 --> 00:41:35,836
Speaker 6: voices you'll hear in this show are from interviews conducted

639
00:41:36,156 --> 00:41:40,476
Speaker 6: by investigative journalist Robert Katz. He published a book in

640
00:41:40,596 --> 00:41:44,156
Speaker 6: nineteen ninety that remains the most comprehensive look into this

641
00:41:44,316 --> 00:41:47,996
Speaker 6: art world tragedy. He spoke with dozens of Anna and

642
00:41:48,076 --> 00:41:52,036
Speaker 6: Carl's friends in noisy restaurants, in parks, in busy offices,

643
00:41:52,716 --> 00:41:55,756
Speaker 6: and you'll hear the voices of some art world insiders

644
00:41:55,836 --> 00:41:59,156
Speaker 6: on these tapes who have since decided not to talk.

645
00:42:00,196 --> 00:42:02,556
Speaker 6: Most folks don't want to discuss what happened that night.

646
00:42:03,076 --> 00:42:05,716
Speaker 6: They don't want to talk about what the ramifications of

647
00:42:05,756 --> 00:42:08,756
Speaker 6: that night were on the art world. They don't want

648
00:42:08,756 --> 00:42:11,636
Speaker 6: to con and plate what it means when a community

649
00:42:11,796 --> 00:42:14,796
Speaker 6: is torn apart by violence, and they don't want to

650
00:42:14,836 --> 00:42:19,316
Speaker 6: discuss whether or not justice has been served. All these

651
00:42:19,356 --> 00:42:22,796
Speaker 6: different folks not talking for all of their different reasons

652
00:42:23,556 --> 00:42:26,196
Speaker 6: means that a veil of silence started to fall over

653
00:42:26,236 --> 00:42:31,836
Speaker 6: this project, and I can't lie. The more silence we encountered,

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00:42:32,276 --> 00:42:35,876
Speaker 6: the more sad and frustrated I became. And the more

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00:42:35,916 --> 00:42:38,956
Speaker 6: silence we encountered, the more I wanted to talk.