M⁴: Medicine, Mystery, Mayhem... and Sometimes Murder

At 19 years old, Loren Schauers made a choice most of us will never have to face. This week, Andrea and Crystal cover the story of a young man whose ordinary workday on a bridge construction site turned into a fight to survive an accident that should have killed him instantly. We break down the injuries, the split-second decisions that saved his life, and the radical surgery that let him keep living, even after losing half his body. It's a story about the limits of the human body, and what it t

Medicine promises the same standard of care to everyone. History tells a different story. In this episode, Andrea and Crystal dig into the disparities baked into modern medicine, who gets diagnosed, who gets believed, and who gets left behind. Two RNs unpack the data, the cases, and the consequences.

He was a physician. He held the rank of general. And for over a decade, he ran one of the most horrifying human experimentation programs in modern history — and walked away from it a free man. This week, we head to Manchuria to unpack the story of Unit 731, the covert biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, and the doctor who built it. We're talking vivisection without anesthesia, deliberate frostbite experiments, and weaponized plague fleas — all conducted

A machine that was supposed to heal became one of the deadliest medical devices of the twentieth century, and nobody could figure out why. This week, we dig into the Therac-25, a radiation therapy machine whose software errors delivered massive, lethal overdoses to patients across the US and Canada in the mid-1980s. We walk through the race condition bugs that let operators override safety checks in a matter of keystrokes, the manufacturer that dismissed early reports as impossible, and the inve

At a crowded state institution on Staten Island, hepatitis wasn't just common. It was almost guaranteed. Instead of treating it, one doctor decided to use it. This week, Andrea walks through the hepatitis studies conducted at Willowbrook State School, where children with intellectual disabilities were deliberately infected in the name of vaccine research. We cover how the study was framed to parents, why it went on for over a decade, and how it became one of the defining scandals in the history

"Two Women Sue Church When Christ Fails to Appear" In a small Utah town, a self-proclaimed prophet convinced dozens of followers that the Second Coming had a date on the calendar. When it didn't happen the way he said, he didn't lose his followers. He just adjusted the story. This week, Crystal and Andrea head to Manti, Utah, to unpack the rise of a charismatic leader who claimed direct communication with God, built a following through seances and secret plural marriages, and somehow talked his