Pregnant women were fed “vitamin cocktails” — they were actually radioactive | NewsNation Prime

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Pregnant women were handed a “vitamin drink” at a prestigious university clinic. No one told them it was radioactive. "The Truth of the Matter" host Natasha Zouves sits down with attorney Donald Arbitblit, who helped expose how Vanderbilt University doctors secretly fed radioactive iron “cocktails” to hundreds of pregnant women in the 1940s — including Emma Craft and Helen Hutchinson — to see how much radiation would cross the placenta to their unborn babies. The women were told it was good for them. Some of their children later developed cancer.

Far beyond a story about just one lawsuit, this conversation is a window into a much larger, disturbing pattern of human radiation experiments on some of the most vulnerable people in America — orphans, hospital patients and pregnant women who thought they were getting care, not being used as test subjects. If you care about medical ethics, informed consent, and what’s still hidden in archives, this conversation will stay with you.

The Truth of the Matter with Natasha Zouves isn’t just another podcast — it’s a fight to uncover what powerful institutions want hidden. From secret human experiments the government carried out on unsuspecting citizens to toxic cover-ups poisoning communities, Emmy and Murrow Award-winning journalist Natasha Zouves brings you the stories people in power don’t want told.

We expose evidence buried in archives, amplify the voices of those who’ve been silenced, and hold the powerful accountable. From radioactive “oatmeal experiments” on children, to cancer causing chemicals destroying farms, to veterans erased from history — these are the stories that matter. This is journalism that refuses to look away. The Truth of the Matter is about transparency, and justice for the people left behind.

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Find host Natasha Zouves:

WATCH part 1 of our conversation with Eileen Welsome

READ the full St. Louis investigation

WATCH the St. Louis investigation Part 1

WATCH the St. Louis investigation Part 2

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