WHITE COLLAR: The Dalkon Shield

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi Crime Junkies, I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today we're doing something that I think is really exciting. There is a podcast that Britt and I are obsessed with. I love it so much. I know, you want to tell them the name? Yeah, it is an amazing show called Swindled. And truly, I think it's one of the most underrated shows and the host is probably tired of hearing me gush over his show, [01:00] white collar crimes and I really think you all are going to love Swindled as much as we do. So what I thought is instead of just playing you a promo like we've done for other shows, I am going to tell you a Swindled story so you can really get a taste for it. It's a story of lies, of cover-ups, and of murder, but murder that was done out in the open while a company was

[01:30] super generous and said we could redo one of his episodes crime junkie style. So I hope you all love this story as much as I did the first time that I heard it. And by love it, I mean I hope it fills you with feminist rage and teaches you something you didn't already know. And Britt, this is one swindled episode that I told you not to listen to specifically because we were doing it. So are you ready to hear me tell it? Oh, I'm so ready. It's been so difficult to not listen to [02:00] episode that I had to skip. Okay, then let's do this. [02:24] I'm in the fall of some kind of swimming, is that right? [02:34] This story starts with a woman named Barbara Seaman, who published a book titled The Doctor's Cased Against the Pill in 1969. You see, the birth control pill had just been recently approved for general sale, like just a decade earlier. And the pill was an important milestone for women. I mean, we had spent decades fighting for the rights to our own body. And to be fair, I feel like we still are.

[03:04] that the pill had, but no one was really talking about. See, back when the pill was released, it actually contained almost 500% more hormones than the pill that you and I are taking today. And the side effects were very often like nausea, depression, weight gain, blood clots, and even strokes. Barbara's book wasn't something everyone 100% agreed with though. She also claimed that the pill caused cancer, sterility, genetic defects, and this was all found to be untrue. [03:34] But her book did cause enough of a stir that a senator out of Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson held a hearing in April of 1970 on whether or not women had enough information about what they were putting into their bodies to even make an informed decision about it. You see, it wasn't like getting birth control nowadays. When I go pick up my pill pack, there is an entire tiny booklet that comes inside of the box listing all the things that can go wrong. Do I ever read it? No, I don't. [04:04] I need it. And when I consulted with my doctor, she sat me down and told me literally all the side effects of it. But back when birth control first came out, there was none of this. No talk from your doctor about side effects, no warning on the package or in the package of birth control, like literally nothing. You had no way of knowing that these tiny pills could have serious side effects to your health. And I have to assume the women that were taking them [04:32] Assume that someone was doing their due diligence. Like there was no way the federal government was allowing people to just push out pills that they had never tested. But that's exactly what was happening. So again, because of this, Gaylord Nelson holds what is later to be called the Nelson hearings. Now, this hearing was a step in the right direction. But I feel like I should point out of all of the people there that they end up hearing from,

[05:02] where you're gonna go I think about what women should or should not have in their birth control do you know who they don't ask women [05:11] actual women taking the pill. Not a single woman got to speak about their experience with the pill. It was all from experts, a lot of men. Barbara Seaman was there, but mostly men. So not a single woman got to speak about their actual experience taking this. And there were a lot of protesters at the event for that very reason. And the men inside who are actually making the decisions are just like, shh, no ladies, we're trying to decide what's best for you here. Please be quiet outside. [05:41] I'm going to jump ahead a little bit here just to tell you that two good things did come from this hearing. The first is that a law was passed saying that packaging had to include some kind of pamphlet that told people the risks and side effects of their birth control. The second kind of good thing, kind of bad thing, is there was a pill scare across the nation and women started to avoid the pill and [06:11] our next character. [06:13] The thing that was really ugly that came out of this was during testimony, one of the men who gets up to speak, one of the lead speakers, in fact, was a man named Dr. Hugh Davis. He was considered to be one of the most important medical authorities who gave credibility to Barbara Seaman's attack on the pill. And this doctor gets up and says that, yes, the pills have so many side effects and women would be far safer to use an IUD over the pill.

[06:43] is an inter-uterine device, and it's this... [06:46] small basically t-shaped birth control device that is actually inserted into the women's uterus and it prevents pregnancy so it's not a pill you take every day it's implanted usually for a couple of years and then removed when you're ready to have a baby now he was so passionate about iuds when he was getting up there and testifying that one of the committee members asked him if he owned any of the patents on iuds in the market and he mentions like just offhandedly that he did co-invent [07:16] decade earlier but it was never sold to the public like yeah he has no conflict here it's no big deal he just thinks it's a good option exactly he's like i'm i'm here just trying to do what's best for women and the committee member follows this up like kind of still pushing so he's like to be clear [07:33] You have zero commercial interest in pushing IUDs. Like you're doing it for their well-being. You gain nothing. And he's like, absolutely. I gain nothing if these women all switched from the pill to an IUD. [07:47] But surprise, he was freaking lying through his teeth. He had recently invented a new IUD. And when I say recently, I mean like within the last few weeks sold it to a big pharmacy company. And when he's testifying, he knows that a percent of every IUD that he'd recently just sold to the big pharma, he gets a percent of every single sale.

[08:15] Now to give you a little info on this Dr. Davis guy, a woman who worked for him once referred to him as the most efficient man she ever knew. He literally preemptively removed his appendix so he would never get appendicitis and never have to miss a day of work. And for everything I read about him, he seemed kind of out there like a little, I don't know if neurotic is the word, but narcissistic. [08:45] planning. He viewed pregnancy as some kind of social evil and he said that the insane pregnancy rates were causing the population to explode and it was contributing to poverty and unrest. And listen, I don't disagree with that still to this day. Like we already know like this is the bad guy in our story. So like his views are bad. But listen, you guys, I don't know if any of you [09:15] but it feels like my manifesto. And I know it's a fictional book. It feels like a good point to plug in though. It was a great audio book that I listened to. If you guys want to listen to it, it's insanely wonderful. You can go to audibletrial.com slash crimejunkie. You can get your free Dan Brown Inferno book. [09:32] so good. But basically, he kind of believed along the lines of this fictional book though, is he believed the pregnancy rate was insane and it was almost his personal mission to stop it. And part of the reason he was so passionate about this is because the 1960s, there was a huge astronomical birth rate that would just baby boomers all over the place. And he was so dedicated to this literally after working a full day at the Baltimore Clinic where he was employed, he would

[10:02] four o'clock in the morning trying to invent new forms of birth control. In 1967, Dr. Davis and his friend Erwin Lerner, and Erwin was a former electrical engineer, they basically come together and they decide that IUDs at the time don't work. They're not good, they don't stay in place, or they're causing really bad pains and cramps and bleeding, and Dr. Davis knew that they could make [10:32] Davis and Lerner partner together and complete a prototype of a redesigned IUD. [10:39] This IUD is round. It was made of this flexible plastic material and had these spine-like protrusions on the outside that would actually prevent it from slipping or prevent it from dislodging. And it had this durable tail. It was like a string tail, basically, to help with removal of the IUD later on. So getting it removed wasn't super painful. It seemed really promising. And it was working. [11:09] version of his IUD into women at his own clinic, and he started recording the results. After looking at 640 patients over a year, there was enough data, he said, to say that the pregnancy rate was 1.1%, which was lower than any other competitor birth control out there on the market. He published these results in the American Journal for Obstentrics and Gynecology, and by 1969, word of this new

[11:39] IUD had gotten out and everybody was talking about it. It was like the hottest thing on the market. A guy named Thad Earl hears about this and he's a doctor but he's also a salesman and he had been using IUDs in his patients and he started using Dr. Davis's and he was so thrilled with the result that he contacted Davis and Lerner and he basically offers them $50,000 of an investment [12:09] and they know you know neither one of them are salesmen so they bring this guy on they also bring on a lawyer and the four of them form the Dalkin Corporation and they call this specific IUD the Dalkin Shield. [12:23] Selling the shield was actually super easy. They would set up these demo booths like across the country in different clinics or at trade shows and literally just talk about the amazing miracle that was the Dowcon shield, how low the birth rates were, passing out free samples. And here's the thing. At the time, we're still talking about like the mid to late 1960s. The FDA monitored actual medication, stuff that you had to put in your mouth to put in your body. [12:53] medical device like this, the FDA didn't monitor at all. And we're not just talking about birth control. I mean, if you put something, a pacemaker into your heart, the FDA had no say over it. So [13:07] Single, independent guy in his garage who makes an IUD and then passes it out to people to be put, like...

[13:14] in people at a hospital and everyone's like, yeah, that's cool. Oh my God. It's a terrifying thought. And again, people had no idea. They all just trusted that the government or some kind of health agency, their doctors were looking out for them. They would assume if there was no like evidence to back this up, their doctor wouldn't put something inside of them. But sure enough, everyone's putting stuff inside of people with like little to nothing to back it up. [13:44] By 1970, multiple big companies wanted to purchase the Dalkinshield, including a big Fortune 500 company called A.H. Robbins. [13:54] Now, A.H. Robbins had like a slew of different companies. They were actually the owners of the Chapstick brand of lip balm, Robitesim cough syrup, random cosmetics here and there. And what they didn't have was a contraceptive. They had everything else. So they needed this in their arsenal. So the Dalkon team sells Dalkon Corporation to A.H. Robbins for $750,000. [14:24] US and Canada, and the four men get up to $30,000 a year for serving as consultants to the company. [14:32] By 1971, the A.H. Robbins Company launched an aggressive sales campaign. They basically boasted this 1.1 pregnancy rate, saying it was literally the ideal birth control. You don't have to think about it, especially for women who didn't want to have to worry about taking the pill every single day. It's safer than the pill. I mean, they went on a crazy sales campaign. And it was effective. Over the next three years, they sold more than 2.2 million units alone in the U.S.

[15:02] capturing more than 60% of the U.S. market. And they sold another $1.1 million overseas. It was incredibly successful, incredibly profitable. And the most insane part to me is the cost to A.H. Robbins was about $0.35 per IUD. They ended up selling it to doctors' offices for $4 an IUD. And then the doctors went on to sell it to the patients for $12 an IUD. So the markup on this was just insane. [15:32] who was involved was making boatloads of money. And this success would explain why the company dismissed early complaints about the Dalkin Shield. Early on, one physician wrote to express his concerns about how painful the method of insertion was. He said that, you know, he had been putting in these IUDs of all types, thousands of them over many years. And he said that this one [16:02] I've ever heard. That's a very intense quote. Right. And you know what? Not only was it apparently painful as hell, Dr. Davis's 1.1% pregnancy rate claim was total bull. It turns out the clinical trials that he conducted only lasted 5.5 months per patient, which isn't enough time to actually arrive at a real rate. If you're testing a woman, you'd think you'd want to do it

[16:32] And… [16:33] Several test subjects said that Dr. Davis told them to use a spermicidal foam in addition to having the IUD in. And guys, I used to actually do scientific research as my day job. So these test results are worthless. If you're testing a birth control method and you're telling someone to use another one in conjunction with it, totally write everything off. None of it matters anymore. The integrity of the data has been compromised. A hundred percent. [17:00] But! [17:00] Was A.H. Robin surprised by any of this that they found? [17:04] No, they knew this before they even purchased the company. Apparently, a doctor named Fred Clark had gone to Baltimore to observe Dr. Davis before they had actually purchased, you know, when they were scoping him out. And according to his notes from the visit, 26 of 832 patients had become pregnant while having the IUD placed. And for anyone in the audience doing math, that's not 1.1%, that's actually 3.1%. [17:34] claim from A.H. Robbins that his notes were transcribed wrong by his secretary, Mr. [17:40] You know, just another stupid woman getting in the way. And he said that really it was supposed to say 6 out of 26. And so there's a lot of controversy. Was he lying? Was it actually transcribed wrong? But he's sticking by their story that the birth rate was super low. A.H. Robbins eventually did their own tests. And they got a pregnancy rate of close to 2%. But even this was fishy. Because two other well-respected medical facilities conducted tests around the same time.

[18:10] And they found rates that were at 5.6 and 10%. 10% is not good for birth control. Like if anyone takes birth control, if they were like, there's a 10% chance you're probably going to get pregnant. [18:23] Would you take it? No, absolutely not. No, no. [18:28] I recently learned that after working out, performance and recovery come down to what's happening in your blood. Now, I pay a lot more attention to what's happening inside my body. And here's what most people overlook. Training gives your body the stimulus, but your internal environment determines what happens next. Thankfully, function can help you see exactly what's going on under the hood. Things like your glucose, whether your body is burning clean or running on fumes. Your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, which one is winning the inflammation battle. Your DHEAS, one of the building blocks your body uses to make testosterone. [18:58] and one of the first things to quietly decline. When these markers are off, you can do everything right and still feel like you're fighting against yourself. Check in on your health. Function provides over 160 labs for $1 per day and member pricing on MRI and CT scans. Join at functionhealth.com slash crimejunkie or use gift code crimejunkie25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. [19:18] So everyone basically just ignored this though. A.H. Robbins kept selling the Dalkon Shield with these BS statistics all over their marketing. And again, they're allowed to do this because no one is monitoring them. Later during a deposition, this same doctor who said his notes were transcribed wrong, Dr. Clark, tried to distance himself from the acquisition of the Dalkon Shield and basically redefine his involvement. He flat out says that he wasn't involved.

[19:48] sure you weren't involved. Like you went out to go test to see if they should acquire this thing. And you brought back notes and now you're saying you had nothing to do with it. And he's like, what? Like, well... [19:59] What do you count as involvement? Because say my secretary sharpens a pencil and makes a note for someone who's looking up a number for somebody who wants to acquire. Is that involved? Oh my gosh, so convoluted. Round and round in like legal circles like a crazy person. But he had been heavily involved. And he had actually ignored an internal memo six months before the product went to market. [20:29] take the IUD out. This memo said that this tail could pose a serious danger to women. And these multiple threads on the string could enable bacteria from outside of the body to travel up the string and enter the uterus, kind of like climbing a rope or like the wick of a candle. And the memo said that these could lead to mass infections. And of course, that's exactly what [20:59] so fascinating and I was so furious when I was reading this. [21:03] So shortly after A.H. Robbins buys the Dalkinshield, they were looking for ways to make it even cheaper. So they moved the assembly and packing to the same location as Chapstick. [21:16] because they are the exact same thing in their mind. Oh, I don't like where this is going. And they have some of the employees from Chapstick putting together these IUDs.

[21:27] There's literally zero quality control. And one man pointed out the issue with the string. And this guy wasn't even a doctor. He's in charge of quality control. But he's like, this doesn't feel right. And I'm just going to call him guy number two comes up. And he's like, no, no, no. It's fine. This outside of the string has this sheath material. So the bacteria can't actually adhere to the string. And guy number one who's in charge of quality control is like, okay, yeah, but [21:55] I know the outside has this sheath, but are we not looking at the same thing? Because both ends of the string are open. There's no sheath around that. And he says, the least you could do is cauterize both ends so that the string isn't actually exposed. And then I think it would be fine. They do that for shoelaces. [22:13] for shoelaces but those are on your feet who cares what's in your vagina and guy number two tells him no we can't do that because men have already complained that it's kind of uncomfortable for them to have sex with women who have the IUD and we don't want to make it more uncomfortable for them [22:31] Girl. [22:32] girl. Do not get me started. I know. So guy number one is obviously skeptical of this. Like he has a penis and even he is like, okay, this doesn't seem right. Like as a part. Again, shoelaces. Yeah. [22:47] shoelaces have this and he's like as a part of quality control he's like I'm going to keep a close eye on things well what he finds is that later on there's even more carelessness by the chapstick people so as they're like putting all these things together what he finds is they're not being super careful and they're breaking holes in that protective sheath even around the string

[23:17] d's the sheaths in all of them had tiny holes so this quality control guy basically writes up like i'm rejecting all of these be sent out we cannot send these out knowing that there's holes where we think bacteria will get and could cause serious infection in women but everyone around this guy was trying to get these things passed through anyways and there was a memo sent out and this is the one that they said the guy ignored earlier that basically says like hey we know these things [23:47] But we can send them out anyways because if we're being honest, I think this is as good as it's going to get. The quality control guy like still won't give up. He starts doing experiments of his own and he proves that this could freaking kill people. Like bacteria will get into the sterile uteruses of women. So he calls his boss to show him. And do you want to know what that butthole says to him? Probably something along the lines of, it's not your concern, go away. Very close. He says, you're conscious. [24:16] does not pay your salary. That's worse though. So much worse. And so the shipment went out and many more like it after that. And do you want to know where a lot of the time and research like and development money went for A.H. Robbins? Probably not, but you're going to tell me. All of their time spent, like any improvements they were trying to make to the IUD were all put into fixing

[24:46] sure that men who were having sex with women who had these IUDs were as comfortable as possible. I'm going to be maybe a tiny bit crass and point out that if they didn't fix that problem, their success rate would probably be a little bit better. Yes. [25:00] *laughs* [25:02] Yes. So while they're busy worrying about how to make sure men can have sex comfortably without getting us pregnant with no actual regard for a woman's well-being, here's what else was going on. The FDA was being flooded with reports from women who had used the Dalkon Shield and then suffered from pelvic inflammatory disease or blood poisoning. And to give you one example, there was [25:32] secretary. [25:33] And she was very young. She wanted to wait a few years before having kids. And she actually went to Dr. Davis himself and got the IUD inserted in 1970. And four months later, she started having like really debilitating pain in her pelvis. She was constantly bleeding. And she kept calling Dr. Davis's office. And he was like, meh, you're fine. Totally normal. Don't even worry about it. And she actually dealt with this pain for a year. [26:03] and I [26:04] The IUD while it was in was taking a toll on her physically. I mean, she was getting sickly looking. She wasn't normal. And almost immediately after getting the IUD removed, she began to look better. But her reproductive health was damaged beyond repair. And five years after having the Dalkin Shield removed, she started having excruciating stomach pains. And while on vacation in New York one day, she had a severe fever and was rushed to the hospital. And they found that her uterus was covered.

[26:34] in adhesions and it had become almost completely and enveloped in scar tissue. [26:40] She had to have eight operations and her fallopian tubes had to be completely reconstructed. And even after all of this, she still was never able to have a child. And the doctors told her, listen, if you're ever going to have a child, you're going to have to consider adoption because what that thing did to you, you can no longer have a child of your own. [27:01] Cape Fear is a new series now streaming on Apple TV. This 10-episode psychological thriller is executive produced by Martin Scorsese and stars Academy Award winner Javier Bardem, Academy Award nominee Amy Adams, and Emmy nominee Patrick Wilson. When convicted murderer Max Cady is released from prison, he begins infiltrating the family of the married attorneys who helped put him behind bars. Watch Cape Fear streaming now on Apple TV. [27:30] And Linda was very torn up about this for years. I mean, it was a big part of her. She'd always wanted to have kids. And she scheduled an appointment with Dr. Davis years later. She wanted to go and confront him. And she calls to make this appointment. And when she was on the phone, she just starts crying to the secretary, saying, you know, I trusted him and he took away a part of my future. And the secretary just said, you know, I'm sorry. She apologized. [27:59] because she got what she always wanted. She just [28:02] wanted an apology from somebody. And unfortunately, Linda would never get that apology from the men really responsible for her situation. And do you know who else didn't get an apology? Anyone? The 327,000 women...

[28:18] who suffered like Linda. Now, while all of these complaints are coming in, the company A.H. Robbins starts victim-blaming really hard. And they basically said, all of your pelvic inflammatory diseases and all of your... [28:33] Blood poisoning is due to your poor hygiene and multiple sex partners. I knew you were going to say promiscuity. It's always that. And they basically said, listen, we have no real reason to... [28:47] warn people against the potential hazards of this IUD. Like it's kind of on you guys. You guys should know better. That's so messed up. [28:54] I know. And as horrible as pelvic inflammation and blood poisoning was, those were not the worst of the side effects. Medical reports from some doctors actually found the shield floating freely in the abdomen cavity of some patients because it had actually ripped through the walls of the uterus. And some women who got pregnant while still wearing the shield would often suffer from spontaneous or late-term miscarriages. [29:24] or brain damaged babies. And we know for sure at least 20 women died because of complications related to the Dalkon Shields. Now, when I say 20, we know about 20. And the true number is most certainly higher because at the same time that these reports start flooding into the FDA from 1971 to 1974, A.H. Robbins had made a deal with the government to send hundreds of thousands of

[29:54] to third world countries. And in order to offset their costs, A.H. Robbins cut costs for these [30:04] in a certain way. And do you even want to guess what they thought was an acceptable way to cut costs? I don't even know anymore. Did they actually put shoestrings on them? They might as well have. What they decided was a good thing to cut is the sterilization portion of their manufacturing. So basically they put together these devices and sent them out unsterilized. So we already know this device is good for catching bacteria and it's causing infections, but now you don't even [30:34] sterile device put into you to start with. [30:37] And it's being made by chapstick makers! [30:40] It's being made by the ChapStick people. And if 20 women in the U.S. died, how many died in other countries? We'll probably never know. The stats were never recorded or made available. And the federal government never issued a recall until 1976, two years after sales in America had stopped. And of the 769,000 that were sent overseas, fewer than half were actually returned. [31:10] You still walk into clinics in some of these third world countries. You can still see the Dalkon shield there ready to be implanted in women to this day. Yeah. [31:20] Now, as all of this was coming out about Dr. Davis and about the Dalkin Shield, Dr. Davis was convinced that this was all a smear campaign and none of this was real. In today's terms, he said it was all fake news. And he said, basically, it was because there were new companies wanting to sell new IUDs and his IUDs were too popular, so they had to get rid of him.

[31:50] And they suspended the sale of the Dalkon Shield in 1974. And the company found itself to be the target of thousands of lawsuits. The very first case settled in 1975. And A.H. Robbins lost. Now they had an in-house counsel at the time. The guy's name was Robert Tuttle. And as soon as they lost, they basically kicked Tuttle to the curb. And they hired a new law firm. And this new law firm had two strategies about how they were going to be successful. [32:20] One, we are going to prolong the cases so long that these women will not be able to afford counsel and they'll have to drop out and we'll basically run them into the ground, force them into bankruptcy. Or two, if they keep going, we're just going to embarrass them. We are going to get them on the stand and ask them, [32:38] all the terrible embarrassing questions about the deepest darkest secrets of their sex life and just make them feel mortified as a way to deter other people from coming forward. Now the defense in this actually kind of tries to turn the table with this second defense. It turns out that the wife of one of the lawyers defending A.H. Robbins had actually been a user of the Dalkinshield and to prove a point about how outrageous their strategy was they put this lawyer on the stand [33:08] And start asking him questions about his wife. About his wife's gynecological appointments. About his wife's sex life. To try and get him to realize how unfair he was being to these other women. This lawyer didn't stop there. He also goes on to ask like in a hypothetical situation. He asked the person on the stand. Wouldn't you like to know if a medical product was dangerous before you actually use it? And the guy's like yeah well I guess I would. And it still doesn't stick.

[33:38] He actually puts it in penis terms, which apparently is what these people need to hear to make the connection. And he said, would you want to know if one product was more likely to make your dick fall off than the other? Like, would it matter to you if one in 10 chance would make your dick fall off or a five in 10 chance? [33:56] And the guy's like, you know, 1 in 10 is not so bad. And the lawyer, like, you can hear the eye roll in his audio. He's like, okay, I'm sure you would do something that in a 1 in 10 chance, your dick's going to fall off. So as the 1980s arrived and the legal battle was just getting started, thousands of people joined together for a lawsuit. There were still women wearing the Dalkin shield because they never told their customers. Still. [34:26] to warn women about the risks of the Dalkin Shield, and they actually offer to pay for them to have it removed if they want to. [34:34] You know, which is so nice for them. It's literally the least that they can do. But at this point, 1984, it's a little bit too late. Court cases continue. And there's a specific judge named Judge Lord in Minnesota. And he had actually 20 of these cases. And he freaking hated A.H. Robbins. He accused them of selling an instrument of death, manipulation, and disease. And he said, your company, without warning to women, [35:04] and caused injury to them. He called them monsters, and he said, your corporate irresponsibility is at the meanest I've ever seen. Eventually, he got removed because he had some mad bias, even though I agree with his bias. I would say, I mean, same, but... Yeah. And when all of these trials were going on, A.H. Robbins' cover-up was totally exposed. Do you remember that lawyer, Mr. Tuttle, who had actually gotten dismissed after he lost that first case? Yeah.

[35:34] comes back to testify and he confirms that the company had destroyed documents related to the Dalkin Shield and its inefficiency and how it was hurting women. He said that he was instructed to destroy all of the incriminating evidence and during the trial there's audio of this trial one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs can actually be heard in court saying can you believe this? Like it was unreal that it was coming forward and this was just the beginning [36:04] Before all of these trials even finished, they filed for bankruptcy in 1985 to actually avoid having to pay any future women, which is also kind of disgusting. $2.5 billion of theirs was set aside for litigation, but there were so many women that on average, the women in the lawsuits took home less than $1,000 apiece. [36:34] another company for $3 billion. And the owners of A.H. Robbins pocketed $385 million tax dollars. [36:45] free. Now technically none of the employees or you know corporate people at A.H. Robbins had broken any laws. So there was no punishment to the company or the employees and not even Dr. Davis who actually broke the law by perjuring himself got in any trouble. And this is what I was saying earlier. Literally these people were responsible for the death of at least 20 women that we know of, likely more, the sterility of hundreds of women and all

[37:14] Their punishment was that they all got to split $385 million and go on to live their lives. I am so infuriated by this whole story. I'm sorry I keep interrupting just to say that, but... [37:24] Oh my gosh. No, I got so heated. That's why I had to drink a barrel of wine before we recorded this episode. I was so upset. Now, in the aftermath, Dr. Davis's paranoia became uncontrollable. You know, he already thought everything was fake news. Everyone was out to get him. He was afraid that the plaintiffs were going to come after him. So he wouldn't go anywhere without a bodyguard. And he spent all of his free time trying to invent a new device that would redeem his reputation. [37:54] committed to a psychiatric facility where he remained for 10 years. And according to his son, it wasn't guilt or remorse. [38:03] that made him go crazy. It was the fact that he was wrong. He could not stand the fact that maybe he invented something that wasn't actually working. He stood by his design until he died of pancreatic cancer in 1996. [38:18] As a result of this whole case, this is what actually caused the FDA to change their rules. And now they do have to actually approve medical devices. Thank God. For a long time, IUDs plummeted in popularity. And it's just now starting to resurface again. I would say in the last 10 years that they're becoming a thing that is talked about, is safe, and is actually like a normal form of birth control used by a lot of women today.

[38:47] But it took a lot to get here, and it took a lot of women getting hurt. I can't believe it took this much to get the FDA to actually care about what's being surgically placed into someone's body, not just what they're swallowing. It took that long for women. [39:03] If it were men, how long would it take? Like, call me a cynic, but I feel like it would not have gone on this long if the device only affected men. Well, I mean, even to that point, it's 2018 and all men have their contraceptive are condoms. And we're still the one having to implant things in our bodies and take chemical hormones to make sure we don't get pregnant. So, you know, it's 2018. We've come a long way. The FDA had made a lot of rules. Like, a lot of good came from all of this bad... [39:32] But the mindset is still the same. [39:35] Yeah, I don't know how really far advanced we are. If we're, I mean, we're still fighting for a lot of rights to our own body. [39:42] We're still the only one pumping stuff into us to make sure we don't get pregnant. So you guys, the first time I heard this story, I loved it. I got so fired up. It was a story that as much as I'm into all of this feminist history, I had never heard before. So if you like this story, again, it's totally different from anything else that's out there. You guys have to go check out Swindled. Go download all the episodes. Go leave them a five-star review. Leave us a five-star review while you're at it. [40:12] patreon that is amazing if you are financially unable to support us on patreon giving us five stars is very very close we need that just as much and if you guys want to follow us on social you can follow us at crime junkie podcast on instagram and at crime junkie pod on twitter and go to our

[40:33] Our store closed, but we still have a couple of items you can get like water bottles and mugs still for sale. [40:39] So go there, get your swag, check out our blog posts, and we will see you again next week for a brand new crime story. [41:09] Our opening theme featured selections from Swindled Podcast. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. [41:15] So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [41:17] *Mario* [41:22] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [41:40] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [41:44] I think you'll love it too. [41:45] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.