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A face cream that blinds a mother. A washing machine that spreads mercury vapor to kids’ bedding. The story unfolds from two devastating cases and pulls back the curtain on a larger problem: toxic skin lightening products hiding in plain sight, fueled by colorism and weak enforcement, and sold with claims that work fast enough to silence doubt. We unpack how mercury suppresses melanin, bioaccumulates in the brain and kidneys, and contaminates homes through laundry and air—often without appearing on any label.

The heart of the episode is both urgent and hopeful: change is possible when awareness, policy, and culture move together. If beauty asks your body to pay up front for speed, it isn’t beauty worth buying.

Listen now, share this with someone who needs it, and help us spread the word. Subscribe for more stories that inform and empower, and leave a review to support the show. Your voice helps protect others.

https//www.Zeromercury.org/pojects/mercury-added-skin-lightening-creams-campaign-database

Minnesota Mother loses peripheral vision from apparent exposure to mercury in beauty creams - Hiiraan Online

thebeautywell.org

minnpost.com

Skin Products Containing Mercury and/or Hydroquinone | FDA

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2012).
Mercury exposure among household users and nonusers of skin-lightening creams produced in Mexico — California and Virginia, 2010. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 61(2), 33–36.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6102a3.htm

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019).
Notes from the field: Methylmercury toxicity from a skin-lightening cream obtained from

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Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at doctoringthetruth@gmail.com. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

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A teenage girl crosses a border for a chance at life—and loses it to a mistake so basic it should have been impossible. We dive into the case of Jesica Santillán, the 17-year-old who received an incompatible heart-lung transplant, and trace how a single missed safeguard exposed cracks across donor services, hospital protocols, and communication chains. This isn’t a story about rare complications or experimental risk; it’s about the simplest check in medicine—blood type matching—and how failing it changed transplant safety nationwide.

If the episode moved you, share it with a friend who works in healthcare, leave a review to help others find the show, and follow us for more cases that challenge and change the way we think about medicine.

Resources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anatomy-of-a-mistake-04-09-2003/

https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMp030033?download=true

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25077248/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesica_Santillan

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3528375?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.wral.com/10-years-later-questions-surround-jesica-s-hope-chest-charity/12997462/

https://corporate.dukehealth.org/news/duke-releases-letter-unos-concerning-jesica-santillan

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/us/girl-in-transplant-mix-up-dies-after-two-weeks.html

Support the show

Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at doctoringthetruth@gmail.com. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

Don't forget to check out these fantastic discounts using promo code STAYSUSPICIOUS from our sponsors at:

*thecuminclub.com for 30% off

*https://strongcoffeecompany.com/discount/STAYSUSPICIOUS for 20% off

*www.handful.com for 30% off

*www.standshoes.com for 15% off

*www.oldglory.com for 15% off

*www.getcheeky.com for 30% off

*https://mollybz.com for 10% off

*www.RSRVCollective.com for 30% off

*klearprotein.com for 20% off

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A cookie-fueled cold open gives way to one of the thorniest questions in modern medicine: are we getting healthier, or just better at making numbers look good? Using Brian Johnson’s “Blueprint” as a case study, we unpack the science behind epigenetic clocks, the appeal of tight control, and the lesson medicine keeps relearning—lowering a risky marker isn’t the same as improving a life. We trace hard-won examples from ICU glucose control to HRT and anti-arrhythmics, then map that history onto today’s longevity culture, where proxies move fast and outcomes arrive slow.

Enjoy the ride, laugh at the holiday detours, and leave with a pragmatic checklist: sleep on purpose, move daily, eat simply, and be skeptical when a perfect metric is sold as a cure. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—your support helps us keep the conversation honest and useful.

Resources:

• Steve Horvath’s original epigenetic clock (2013, Genome Biology)
• National Law Review+1
• BryanJohnson.com
• GrimAge and PhenoAge models (Aging, Nature Communications)
• DunedinPACE (eLife, 2022)
• Home | CALERIE
• American Federation for Aging Research+1
• The Documentary “Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever” on Netflix

Support the show

Don't miss a (heart) beat! Check out our Instagram @doctoringthetruthpodcast and email us your Medical Mishaps at doctoringthetruth@gmail.com. Join us on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth, and TikTok @doctoring the truth. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can keep bringing you more exciting content each week!

Stay safe, and stay suspicious...trust, after all, is a delicate thing!

Don't forget to check out these fantastic discounts using promo code STAYSUSPICIOUS from our sponsors at:

*thecuminclub.com for 30% off

*https://strongcoffeecompany.com/discount/STAYSUSPICIOUS for 20% off

*www.handful.com for 30% off

*www.standshoes.com for 15% off

*www.oldglory.com for 15% off

*www.getcheeky.com for 30% off

*https://mollybz.com for 10% off

*www.RSRVCollective.com for 30% off

*klearprotein.com for 20% off

*www.torrain.org for 15% off