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How They Made Us Doubt Everything

by BBC Radio 4
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Latest episodes

  • Talc Tales: 5. Talc on trial

    August 5, 2024 · 15 min

    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 asbestos fibre came from the make-up…

  • Talc Tales: 4. ‘Time for more confusion’

    August 5, 2024 · 15 min

    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 agencies tasked with listing cancer…

  • Talc Tales: 3. ‘We may have problems’

    August 5, 2024 · 15 min

    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 they chose wasn’t sensitive enough to…

  • Talc Tales: 2. Never 100% clean

    August 5, 2024 · 15 min

    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 the source. How could people just going…

  • Talc Tales: 1. Asbestos in my make-up?

    August 5, 2024 · 15 min

    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. The average life expectancy from…

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  • Introducing Talc Tales

    July 28, 2024 · 2 min

    Is there asbestos in make-up? If you look through your make-up bag, you might have a blusher, eye shadow or face powder that contains the ingredient talc. But there are questions about its safety. Women diagnosed with cancer have started…

  • The Tobacco Playbook: 10. Leaving the Tribe

    July 27, 2020 · 14 min

    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 Committee investigation ruled: ‘There…

  • The Tobacco Playbook: 9. Deep Pockets, Useful Allies

    July 27, 2020 · 14 min

    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 temperature record, we reveal that ten…

  • The Tobacco Playbook: 8. Jerry gets ‘duped’

    July 27, 2020 · 14 min

    As climate change goes prime time, a super star climate change sceptic wins his last TV debate. Jerry Taylor was working at CATO, a free market think tank and was regularly on TV putting forward contrarian arguments. One day, all that…

  • The Tobacco Playbook: 7. The Opponent

    July 27, 2020 · 14 min

    How do you win a battle, if you’re fighting in the wrong arena? A look at how the virtues of science were being used against the scientists. Uncertainty is an inherent part of climate change science, but the word means something different…

  • The Tobacco Playbook: 6. From Fact to Theory

    July 27, 2020 · 14 min

    ‘Unless “climate change” becomes a non-issue…there may be no moment when we can declare victory’. We reveal the communications plans drawn up by energy groups to make us doubt climate change. From targeting ‘older, lesser educated males…

  • The Tobacco Playbook: 5. Big Oil's Big Group

    July 27, 2020 · 14 min

    As the world’s scientists agree on man-made climate change, the oil companies come together to form their own coalition. They aren’t just focused on the science, though. From climate change to smoking and cancer, this is the story of how…

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About the show

From smoking and cancer to climate change, this is the story of how to manufacture doubt. Investigating the industry response to claims there could be asbestos in make-up, and the tactics that could be used to cast doubt over the science and create controversy.