Into the Multiverse | 6

Summary

Hysterical Episode 6: Into the Multiverse – A Detailed Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Hysterical
• Host/Author: Wondery | Pineapple Street Studios
• Episode: Into the Multiverse | 6
• Release Date: August 19, 2024

Overview: In Episode 6, titled "Into the Multiverse," host Dan Taberski delves deep into the enigmatic world of mass psychogenic illness, drawing parallels between seemingly isolated incidents and broader societal phenomena. This episode intricately weaves personal narratives, expert insights, and investigative journalism to explore whether certain mysterious illnesses are products of environmental factors or manifestations of collective psychological stress.

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1. Introduction and Series Recognition

Dan Taberski opens the episode with exciting news about the podcast's recognition:

Dan Taberski [00:00]: "Hysterical has been named the Apple Podcast's show of the Year. It's a recognition given to just one show that demonstrates quality and innovation in podcasting."

This accolade sets the stage for a compelling exploration of mass hysteria and its real-world implications.

2. Mass Hysteria: A Global Phenomenon

Taberski introduces the central theme by recounting a disturbing outbreak of mysterious symptoms among female students in Iran:

Dan Taberski [01:14]: "Hysteria is alive and well."

Key Points:

• In December 2022, students at an all-girls conservatory in Qom, Iran, exhibited unexplained symptoms such as shortness of breath and numbness, leading to hospitalizations.
• Similar outbreaks emerged across 16 provinces in Iran, correlating with mass protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
• Azadeh Moveni, an Iranian American journalist, reported on these incidents, suggesting possible state-sponsored gas attacks targeting girls' education or attributing them to psychogenic factors.

3. The Case of Annika Collins: Accidental Fentanyl Overdose?

The episode spotlights Annika Collins, a prosecutor in Highland County, Ohio, who experienced a sudden health crisis during a trial:

Annika Collins [11:50]: "All right, good morning."

Incident Details:

• During the trial of two meth traffickers, Collins introduced Exhibit 92 containing digital scales used for weighing drugs.
• While handling the evidence, Collins began feeling unwell, exhibiting symptoms typically associated with opioid overdose.
• She was administered Narcan, an opioid antagonist, which temporarily alleviated her symptoms, suggesting an opioid overdose.

4. The 2016 DEA Fentanyl Exposure Report

Taberski revisits a pivotal moment in 2016 when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) issued a safety alert:

Chris Sexton [16:00]: "Fentanyl can kill you."

Key Points:

• The DEA warned law enforcement officers about the lethal potency of fentanyl, suggesting that mere exposure could lead to overdose.
• Police Chief Tom Sinan of Newtown, Ohio, took this warning seriously, halting field tests for fentanyl in his department.
• However, medical experts began questioning the validity of these claims, noting discrepancies between the DEA's warnings and practical evidence.

5. Contradictions Between Law Enforcement and Medical Experts

The episode highlights conflicting perspectives on fentanyl exposure:

Ryan Marino [23:07]: "This myth just won't die."

Key Points:

• While law enforcement officers reported adverse reactions from incidental fentanyl exposure, toxicologists and medical experts contested these claims.
• Marino, an ER doctor and triple board-certified specialist, emphasized that accidental overdose from fentanyl contact is scientifically implausible under normal conditions.
• Studies indicate that significant exposure—such as inhaling large quantities over extended periods—is necessary for fentanyl to be lethal, which contradicts the sudden symptoms reported by officers like Collins.

6. Exploring Mass Psychogenic Illness (MPI)

Taberski and his guests delve into the concept of mass psychogenic illness as a potential explanation for these outbreaks:

Dan Taberski [06:03]: "My hope is to decouple it because I think it explains things that are happening now."

Key Points:

• MPI, often referred to historically as mass hysteria, involves the rapid spread of symptoms through a population without a discernible physical cause.
• The term "hysterical" carries significant historical and gendered baggage, complicating its modern usage and acceptance.
• Collins and other affected individuals firmly believe in the physical origins of their symptoms, creating tension between subjective experiences and objective medical assessments.

7. The Vicious Cycle of Fear and Perception

The episode examines how fear and belief perpetuate the phenomenon:

Dan Taberski [32:13]: "The nocebo effect. If you really, truly believe strongly enough that something bad is happening, that something is making you sick, you can have actual physical symptoms in your body."

Key Points:

• Belief in the lethality of fentanyl exposure can lead to genuine physical reactions, regardless of the actual presence of the drug.
• The spread of fear, especially through media and shared experiences, can amplify and sustain these symptoms across communities.
• This creates a feedback loop where fear induces symptoms, which in turn reinforces fear.

8. Ethical and Societal Implications

Taberski discusses the broader consequences of MPI on society and systems:

Tom Sinan [38:44]: "When this starts causing the potential for more people to die, then I think it's important to tell the truth."

Key Points:

• Misconceptions about fentanyl exposure have led to punitive measures, such as charging individuals with assault for alleged accidental exposures.
• The stigma and legal repercussions exacerbate the suffering of affected individuals, blurring the lines between psychological distress and physical harm.
• The phenomenon undermines public trust in both law enforcement and medical institutions, highlighting the need for nuanced understanding and compassionate responses.

9. Conclusion: Navigating Between Reality and Perception

In wrapping up, Dan Taberski reflects on the complexities of discerning reality from perception in cases of mass psychogenic illness:

Dan Taberski [36:11]: "Mass psychogenic illness doesn't care what you know. This isn't about the known anything. This is about the unknown."

Key Takeaways:

• The line between physical reality and psychological manifestation is often blurred, making it challenging to address MPI effectively.
• Respecting individual experiences while fostering scientific inquiry is crucial in navigating these phenomena.
• The enduring nature of MPI underscores the profound impact of collective psychological states on public health and societal dynamics.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• Dan Taberski [00:00]: "Hysteria is alive and well."
• Dan Taberski [06:03]: "My hope is to decouple it because I think it explains things that are happening now."
• Ryan Marino [23:07]: "This myth just won't die."
• Tom Sinan [38:44]: "When this starts causing the potential for more people to die, then I think it's important to tell the truth."
• Dan Taberski [36:11]: "Mass psychogenic illness doesn't care what you know. This isn't about the known anything. This is about the unknown."

---

Final Thoughts

Episode 6 of "Hysterical" masterfully navigates the intricate interplay between belief, fear, and reality in the context of mass psychogenic illness. Through the lens of individual experiences like Annika Collins' and broader societal responses, the podcast invites listeners to ponder the profound capabilities of the human mind and the complexities of diagnosing and addressing collective psychological phenomena.

Transcript

[Dan Taburski]

Wondery subscribers can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free. Join Wonder in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's Dan. I have an exciting announcement to share with everyone. Hysterical has been named the Apple Podcast's show of the Year. It's a recognition given to just one show that demonstrates quality and innovation in podcasting. The editors over at Apple Podcasts called our show an impeccably crafted and creatively structured investigation that sets a new standard for immersive audience experiences. And if you can't tell by the sound of my voice, I'm blushing. We really are so honored and so appreciative for the recognition and that you are here to listen to the show that we're really proud of. Thanks for listening. Now onto the show. Previously on Hysterical. Why don't you think they believed you?

[Anika Collins]

Honestly, I was the only guy.

[Tom Sinan]

How is this and what happened to me, you know, psychogenic. That doesn't. How is it mass hysteria? That makes no sense to me.

[Anika Collins]

The human mind is a very powerful thing.

[Dan Taburski]

Hysteria is alive and well. About a year and a half ago, In December of 2022, a group of students at a school for girls suddenly came down with mysterious symptoms that no one could explain. It reportedly starts with an unusual gas smell. The girls begin experiencing shortness of breath, numbness in the arms and legs, difficulty walking. Over the course of a couple hours, 51 girls become ill and are sent to the hospital. The symptoms resolve themselves soon after. This isn't happening in Leroy or in any American high school. It's happening at a girls conservatory in the holy city of Qom in Iran. And it's just the beginning. Across the country today, 16 provinces reported dozens of students falling mysteriously ill. Dozens of outbreaks like this are reported in girls schools across Iran over the coming weeks. It's all happening on the heels of mass protests that had erupted after a young woman named Mahsa Amini died in police custody in Tehran. She had been detained for wearing her hijab wrong. It's now suspected that girls are being poisoned in their schools in gas attacks as retaliation for the uprising. Parents are angry at what many see as a targeted attack on girls education, and they blame local officials for not doing enough to protect their children. News reports flood the Internet showing young girls lying in hospital beds.

[Azadeh Moveni]

This girl says, first we smelled gas in the classroom.

[Dan Taburski]

And last week this girl says, her.

[Azadeh Moveni]

Whole body was numb.

[Dan Taburski]

She couldn't walk before it's over. The outbreak spreads to over 100 schools, with as many as 7,000 girls and their teachers becoming ill. And so it.

[Ryan Marino]

Was kind of a war. It was a war between society and the state and these schoolgirls were fighting it.

[Dan Taburski]

Azadeh Moveni is an Iranian American journalist and covered the suspected poisonings on the ground there for the New Yorker.

[Ryan Marino]

And so the stakes felt like bizarrely high for what a 14 year old or a 15 year old should be contemplating.

[Dan Taburski]

Azadeh says that the outbreak seemed minor to her at first, but then it spread so rapidly and then a journalist friend of hers covering the story was detained by police.

[Ryan Marino]

You know, in Iran when journalists start getting arrested for reporting on something, there's something there, something is happening. And it seemed very serious.

[Dan Taburski]

Azadeh is not new to this kind of reporting. She had been based in Tehran before, covering the Middle east with a special focus on women in militant groups. But still this story in particular was a hornet's nest. The possibility of state or state adjacent actors sabotaging girls education isn't just some scenario that someone plucked out of nowhere in this country with these politics, with the rights of women and girls under siege, it's more than just possible. Azadeh believed it was happening and it was bearing out in her reporting. But she also found herself bumping up against this other thing. Given the details of the outbreak, mysterious symptoms, sudden onset, inconclusive testing, confined almost exclusively to one social group, some sort of psychogenic component seemed possible as well. Not for all or even most, but perhaps for some. She'd heard fragments of it in her reporting.

[Ryan Marino]

I spoke to teachers in schools who were clearly just very, very tense and frightened. And they would sort of say, like that day I just, I was wearing three masks, I was hot. We were all frightened. It had happened at another school. Like, I don't even know if it was real. Like someone came and said, we smell something. And then we all started to feel fluttery and I don't know in the end.

[Dan Taburski]

And she spoke to victims of which there were thousands who were struggling with the fear of what was happening.

[Ryan Marino]

Because these were young girls, they were very emotive, they were all frightened. They were constantly on WhatsApp with each other at night. Don't go to school, we all have to stay home. You know, they were, they were sort of whipping each other up into a frenzy. And I mean, I know that this is a word that we can't use, but I don't. I mean, they were that H word. It seemed possible that there was a contagion effect.

[Dan Taburski]

I think it's so interesting that you Said the H word.

[Ryan Marino]

Oh, yes.

[Dan Taburski]

Why?

[Ryan Marino]

The H word takes us into this sort of Victorian literature, Gothic space that's super gendered. That is a word that comes with very heavy baggage. And I don't know how we can sort of decouple it from that so we can use it in its sort of. In a more informed way.

[Dan Taburski]

My hope is to decouple it because I think it's. I think it explains things that are happening now. Psychogenic illness is not an all or nothing thing. It can explain some cases of a mystery illness without negating the rest. The problem is, once you start acknowledging possible psychological or sociological components to an outbreak, it immediately sounds like you're dismissing the whole thing, like you're making something seem like it was nothing. And when the something is whether or not thousands of girls are being poisoned in their schools, it can get gnarly very fast. In the end, Azadeh's story on the school poisonings had enough to deal with without dwelling too much on the possibility of the other thing. But now, with a little distance, she suspects that a lot of the cases she reported on were in fact psychogenic, if only for one very simple, very powerful reason.

[Ryan Marino]

Because why would it not be? I mean, in the end, if you have so many young girls so fearful of the state that they think their state is making them ill, like that in and of itself is an illness like that, to me as a reporter and as a citizen of that country, is really fascinating and important. And it doesn't mean that it's any less significant or momentous if psychologically some part of the spectrum of what we saw was fear. Because to be fearful of your state is a very profound and terrible thing.

[Dan Taburski]

The amount of stress that must have created.

[Ryan Marino]

But this summer, when I was back in the life of a teenager, time is really fluid. I was like, so what is it like now? And they're like, oh, it's totally changed and we're fine and we're onto new things, like now we've moved on.

[Dan Taburski]

It's not lost on me that some people find the word hysterical so insulting that they're hesitant to even say the title of this show out loud. It is an old, creaky word and it does have very heavy baggage. But dancing around it also means dancing around our ability to take it seriously and understand better the conditions that might give rise to it. On today's episode, one more stop before we head back to Lirui. This time, it's Ohio to look at something that's been going on there for years and it's still going on. And whatever this thing is, it sits right in that uncomfortable sweet spot between your willingness to accept that mass hysteria is alive and well and your absolute certainty that it could never happen to you. Dan I'm Dan Taburski from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. This is hysterical. Episode 6 Into the Multiverse if you.

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[Dan Taburski]

Annika Collins is partial to the word dope.

[Annika Collins]

I say dope for everything and most people do not.

[Dan Taburski]

Not dope as in that's dope. She means dope as in drugs most people call dope.

[Annika Collins]

Like dope is marijuana, meth is meth, heroin's heroin, fentanyl is fetty. But I call everything dope.

[Dan Taburski]

Anika was raised in Highland County, Ohio, and For the past 13 years she's been the county prosecutor here and here. Dope is ever present. Ohio has one of the highest overdose rates in the country. Anika says drug trafficking cases make up more than half of her caseload in Highland county, and she's clearly good at it.

[Annika Collins]

We Were trying to remember, I don't know that I've ever lost a drug trafficking case in the time I'd been in the prosecutor's office. So I was super confident with our case.

[Dan Taburski]

Confident that when the trial began of two meth traffickers in March of 2022, she was expecting to keep the streak going.

[Anika Collins]

All right, good morning.

[Dan Taburski]

Good to see everybody back. But something happens on trial day three to make her less concerned about keeping the streak and more concerned about keeping her shit together, period.

[Annika Collins]

May I approach the witness?

[Dan Taburski]

May. It happens as she is questioning a witness on the stand, exhibit after exhibit, building her case.

[Annika Collins]

Can you go ahead and OpenState the Exhibit 92?

[Dan Taburski]

But things go south for Anika just as she is presenting Exhibit 92. The exhibit. Inside a Manila evidence pouch are two.

[Annika Collins]

Digital scales, which we always find in traffickers houses because that's how they weigh the dough.

[Dan Taburski]

So she says to the investigator on the stand, do you recognize these? And he takes the scales out of the bag and he says, yes. And she says, what are they? And he says, they're digital scales. That's how they weigh the dope. It's all pretty standard.

[Annika Collins]

But then he put them back into the bag. And I took the bag and kind of squeezed it, folded it up, laid it down on the table, and that's the last thing that I remember.

[Dan Taburski]

The next part she only knows from watching the courtroom video. Same as we are. We see her introducing another exhibit.

[Annika Collins]

I'm next going to hand you what's previously been marked as Daisy, exhibit 96.

[Jack Riley]

Do you recognize this?

[Dan Taburski]

I do. And all of a sudden she looks kind of wobbly, almost like someone had snuck a pair of roller skates on her feet.

[Annika Collins]

And then I leaned on the judge's bench, which is something I would never do. It's completely disrespectful. I just would never do that. And the judge looked at me and said, are you okay? And I said, yeah, I think I just need a minute. We haven't been a judge. I don't feel good.

[Dan Taburski]

Take a break. Down goes Collins. The witness jumps off the stand and catches her just before she hits the floor. Okay, we'll take about a 10 minute break here. You can leave the room if you wish. Just remember the admonition when the medics arrive. Anika is barely alert. And one of the medics says to.

[Annika Collins]

Her, dollface, you've got to tell me how you're feeling. And I remember looking at her and saying, I don't feel anything at all. Like, I don't feel My fingers, I don't feel my toes. I feel nothing at all.

[Dan Taburski]

Wow.

[Annika Collins]

And Chris Sexton was the other paramedic, and he said, oh, my gosh, let's give her another dose. By this time, they had put an IV in me and they started giving me Narcan through the iv.

[Dan Taburski]

Narcan. She says they had already given her one dose, administered through the nose like nasal spray. Now they were giving her more intravenously. Why Narcan?

[Annika Collins]

So Narcan is only used for one thing, and that is to treat an opioid overdose.

[Dan Taburski]

Anika is rushed to the hospital, where she stabilized.

[Annika Collins]

At the hospital, I know that I was loopy, like when my daughters came in. I guess I said, hey, girl, hey, when they came in, which is not something I would do.

[Dan Taburski]

Anika says that her doctors tell her she most likely had experienced an overdose of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, or rather on a variant called parafluorofentanyl. How? Annika believes there was residue of the drug in that evidence bag with the scales in it, Exhibit 92, that she had introduced at trial. According to the CDC, fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin.

[Annika Collins]

So even a very, very small amount ingested would have had an impact on me. The hospital, they said, there's no doubt that's what's happened to you. There's absolutely no doubt.

[Dan Taburski]

So that was in 2022. Let's back it up a few years now to 2016.

[Chris Sexton]

I'm Jack Riley, deputy administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and I want to take a minute today to talk to you about something very important. As a matter of fact, it could kill you, and that's fentanyl.

[Dan Taburski]

In 2016, the DEA released this safety alert video to all the country's police departments about how fentanyl was so potent that even touching it, just being exposed to it at all could kill you.

[Chris Sexton]

But don't just listen to me. Listen to these two hard working cops in which fentanyl almost got the best.

[Dan Taburski]

Of in the process of sealing the bag. And then these two cops detail their own experience of what even just incidental contact with fentanyl did to them. Just out of force of habit, I grabbed the bag and I closed it up, forcing the air out of it so I get a good seal. And when I did that, a bunch of it poofed up into the air, right into our face, and we ended up inhaling it. I felt like my body was shutting down. The video is only a couple minutes long. Thought that was it. I thought I was dying.

[Tom Sinan]

That was.

[Dan Taburski]

But it's more than enough time to hit the major theme, double hard again.

[Chris Sexton]

Fentanyl can kill you.

[Tom Sinan]

The DEA report came out. It went to every police department in the United States. I even had a copy of it.

[Dan Taburski]

Tom Sinan is a police chief in Newtown, Ohio, outside Cincinnati. The fentanyl wave was just beginning to crash down hard in their community. When Sinon saw that DEA video and the report that went along with it.

[Tom Sinan]

The DEA said if you were, quote, unquote, exposed, which meant if it got on your skin or it got airborne, you could overdose.

[Dan Taburski]

Chief Seinen calls a press conference to discuss how they would proceed given the concerning news about fentanyl.

[Tom Sinan]

I was one of the officers who repeated it. I stood up in a press conference and said, we will no longer field test fentanyl, because, look, the DEA put out this report. This is how dangerous this stuff is. I stood up and repeated that report because that's what I believed.

[Dan Taburski]

But then a colleague gently points something out to Chief Sinan.

[Tom Sinan]

And as soon as I stepped off, the health commissioner goes, man, I'm not too sure about this. He goes, think about it. Nurses and doctors deal with fentanyl every day, and it's not happening to them. And I was like, huh?

[Dan Taburski]

It kind of makes sense, right? Fentanyl is an incredibly dangerous drug when abused, but it is also one of the most useful drugs in medicine, in surgery, for managing pain. And medical teams come in contact with it constantly using just basic precautions, and it doesn't seem to be an issue.

[Tom Sinan]

And I thought, well, that's really weird, but maybe it's just because it's in a controlled environment. So then I started talking to people that use fentanyl, and I'm like, hey, are you guys wearing gloves and masks? And they're going, what is wrong with you? How could I use it if I'm wearing gloves and masks? They carry fentanyl in their pocket. They prep it without gloves or touching it. And they would say, the only time I get any reaction from it is if I inject it or snort it.

[Dan Taburski]

But then things get really wild, because just as toxicologists and other medical experts begin questioning the facts in that DEA video, something else begins to happen. How are you feeling right now? Feel weird, man. Because he said he's floating. His legs are tingling, slurring. My toes are tingling, right? Videos of cops overdosing on fentanyl after just accidental exposure come rolling in. It happens in Jefferson County, Alabama. Hey, bro, I don't feel right.

[Jack Riley]

I don't feel right.

[Ryan Marino]

I think I touched fentanyl.

[Tom Sinan]

I don't feel it right now.

[Dan Taburski]

It happens in Kansas City.

[Ryan Marino]

He had fentanyl.

[Tom Sinan]

He had Fentanyl.

[Dan Taburski]

Narcan. Narcan. Narcan. Dozens of videos of collapsing, cops passing out shaking heart palpitations just from being near the drug. I'm San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore. What you're about to see is traumatic body worn camera footage involving one of our deputies who was exposed to fentanyl during his patrol shift. You're okay.

[Tom Sinan]

Don't be sorry.

[Dan Taburski]

There isn't a lot of great data on how often this is happening, so we gathered it ourselves. By our count, the number of reactions to accidental fentanyl exposure reported by the media since the DEA report came out in 2016, 332 and counting.

[Tom Sinan]

You don't see it with dealers. You don't see it with nurses, doctors. This is really a phenomenon isolated to the criminal justice system.

[Dan Taburski]

It's happening to police, to prison guards, to court officers. And now, as we've heard, a criminal prosecutor, Annika Collins in Ohio, who collapsed after touching drug evidence in court. Mysterious symptoms, sudden onsets confined almost exclusively to one social group and a suspected cause for which there seems to be little to no proof. Except a DEA warning video from 2016 that now seems highly dubious.

[Tom Sinan]

And there was no science or studies or research done behind it. It was just his belief that if you were exposed to it, you could overdose and die.

[Dan Taburski]

Belief is really powerful.

[Tom Sinan]

I mean, no belief is more powerful than truth.

[Dan Taburski]

Foreign.

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[Anika Collins]

This fear of fentanyl being so potent that it could cause overdose through kind of accidental contact has been around for a while.

[Dan Taburski]

Ryan Marino is an ER doctor in Ohio. Actually, he's a doctor three times over, triple board certified in addiction medicine, emergency medicine, and medical toxicology. By his count, he has treated hundreds of overdose victims, the majority from fentanyl. He could hardly be more front and center to the fentanyl disaster that has ravaged communities for years. So it's oddly ironic that he, of all people, has become the public voice of fentanyl. Not that scary. A couple months ago, you put out a challenge that said, if any doc filmmakers can get the funding and enough legal representation that you would roll around naked in a giant martini glass full of fentanyl on camera just to prove it was said. Yes. What are you trying to say, Ryan?

[Anika Collins]

I mean, this myth is just won't die. So whatever I could do to stop that. And I mean, I think that would be funny, too.

[Dan Taburski]

Well, apparently podcast insurance doesn't cover giant martini glass stunts, but we get the point. A big part of Marino's life now is spent ballyhooing the scientific facts of fentanyl. Starting with, you will not accidentally overdose on fentanyl just by touching it.

[Anika Collins]

Fentanyl on the street, that is in drugs. This is fentanyl that comes in a solid form, usually sold as a powder when it's being sold or pressed into pills. And so that solid powder does not cross through your skin very easily, you would have to take large quantities of it, mix it into some sort of liquid solution, and hold it against your skin for a very long period of time.

[Dan Taburski]

Like how long?

[Anika Collins]

Like hours.

[Dan Taburski]

I actually spoke to one pharmacist who accidentally doused his hands in 40 milliliters of liquid fentanyl. No overdose. Another fact. You will not overdose on fentanyl, he says, by accidentally breathing it in. Well, is that not true?

[Anika Collins]

No, it's not true.

[Dan Taburski]

You can't accidentally breathe one in?

[Anika Collins]

Not accidentally, no. If you were snorting fentanyl or snorting a powder, you could possibly overdose.

[Dan Taburski]

And even unintentionally, like if a cloud of it poofed into the air, according to the American association of Medical Toxicologists, you would have to be standing in that cloud for over three hours to inhale even 100 micrograms of fentanyl.

[Anika Collins]

Again, fentanyl that's in street drugs is a solid. Solid doesn't just turn into gas. And we do know, too, that through another law of physics, we have this concept of vapor pressure, which is kind of the ability of something to transition into, like, a gaseous state or aerosolize spontaneously. And fentanyl has a very low vapor pressure. And so under, like, any sort of normal conditions on the planet Earth, fentanyl in a powder form sitting somewhere is not going to aerosolize.

[Dan Taburski]

Is it theoretically possible for a person to inhale enough aerosolized fentanyl to overdose?

[Anika Collins]

You could walk out in the street, and Wile E. Coyote could drop a piano on your head. Like that is, I guess, something that could happen. But we have enough actual evidence and data and understanding of fentanyl to say that this is not a real risk. Like, sure, you could fall down into a wind tunnel and have millions of dollars of fentanyl blown directly into your face, your nose, your mouth, your lungs. I guess that's always a possibility, but it's not something that I worry.

[Dan Taburski]

Are you familiar with the multiverse? You would be if you read as many comic books as I did when I was a kid or if you'd seen a Marvel movie in the past 15 years. The multiverse began appearing in Marvel comics in the 1970s to help make sense of all the contradictory storylines involving the same superheroes. So regular Earth, the Earth we live on, is technically known as Earth616. I don't know why that's our number. It just is. And on Earth 616, Spider man under that mask is really unassuming Queens native Peter Parker, right? But there are other earths in the multiverse, alternate realities. Earth 1610, for example, is exactly the same as ours, except in that one. Peter Parker dies in a fight with a green goblin. On Earth982, it's exactly the same as ours, except here Peter Parker lives, and he gets married, too. So that's nice. On Earth 2149, Spider man is still Peter Parker, but no joke, this is true. Captain America gets promoted, so he's known as Colonel America. But then they're both infected by a zombie virus. Stay away from Earth 21:49. What am I prattling on about multiverses for? Because I think that is the situation we're in here with fentanyl and a lot of potentially hysterical situations that we're dealing with. Two worlds where everything is exactly the same, except for one thing. A small difference, but one that has knock on effects that grow until one day you realize we are no longer even on the same planet.

[Annika Collins]

I don't believe for a minute I touched it and then overdose. I don't believe that's what happened, but I do believe that I ingested it somehow.

[Dan Taburski]

Annika Collins, the Ohio prosecutor, believes that she picked up that evidence bag with the digital scales in it and some trace amount of fentanyl got into her system and she OD'd right there in court.

[Annika Collins]

When I squeezed that evidence bag, I didn't have gloves on, but if I would have touched, you know, my mouth, my nose, my eyes or inhaled it when I did that, when I shut that bag up and inhaled it, that's probably what happened because I squeezed the bag together.

[Dan Taburski]

Because you're doing the things, when you close the bag, you like squeeze it to get the air out. Like when you're putting a sandwich in a bag.

[Annika Collins]

Right? That's exactly right. I squeezed that bag together to get the air out and that's probably when it happened. But I had no doubt that I inhaled it, ingested it somehow.

[Tom Sinan]

I don't fault anybody for believing it at the time. Everyone believed it. I was one of them.

[Dan Taburski]

Chief Seinen, the Ohio police chief, he believed accidental overdose was possible once too.

[Tom Sinan]

She did experience something. Dan. I don't know how you quantify this into a documentary podcast or whatever it is. That to her was real.

[Dan Taburski]

Real, but just not a fentanyl overdose happening right now.

[Ryan Marino]

Highland county attorneys recovering in the hospital after handling drug evidence while in court.

[Dan Taburski]

In fact, authorities say Narcan had to.

[Chris Sexton]

Be used on that attorney.

[Dan Taburski]

So when Anika's overdose in court hit the news and the news station was looking for an expert to give his two cents, Chief Steinen, bless his heart, raised his hand. Here he is in the 5:00 news.

[Tom Sinan]

You can't just touch fentanyl and you're very unlikely to overdose from just touching fentanyl.

[Annika Collins]

They went and got somebody that self identified as an expert in overdose.

[Dan Taburski]

I like the self identified part. He was a police. He was a police chief, a local police chief. Am I wrong?

[Annika Collins]

Right. Of like a town of like 3,000.

[Tom Sinan]

Oof.

[Dan Taburski]

Burn.

[Annika Collins]

Well, first he obviously, I mean, he doesn't know me at all and basically called me a liar and a faker on national television or not national, but Ohio television, it infuriated me.

[Dan Taburski]

But just being mad, just stewing about it, not doing something about it, it.

[Annika Collins]

Felt on Anika, I Actually called him on the phone the next day because I was so furious.

[Tom Sinan]

I understand why she was upset. I understand why she was upset at me.

[Dan Taburski]

Anika gives Chief Seinen a friendly jingle.

[Tom Sinan]

And we had a lengthy. It was pretty much a one sided conversation with a lot of loud voices. But I was not personally offended by it because I did understand her, her position.

[Dan Taburski]

In the video, Collins is seen grabbing.

[Cindy Crawford]

Her chest and her breathing rate is very rapid.

[Dan Taburski]

From Sinan's point of view, her symptoms were not consistent with fentanyl. Here's what he said in that news report.

[Tom Sinan]

It's actually the exact opposite is very slow heart rate, very slow breathing. Again, you often hear people snore or gurgling. That is actually the breathing in the lungs kind of shutting down. So it's the exact opposite.

[Dan Taburski]

Collins was given Narcan. Here's Dr. Marino, the toxicologist, on what a fentanyl overdose would actually look like.

[Anika Collins]

If you were having a fentanyl overdose, your heart rate would slow down. You would not know you were overdosing. You would not feel scared. We give opioids, including fentanyl, to people who have serious medical issues, people who are dying to help with fear, with suffering, with all of those things. And so they actually do the literal opposite.

[Dan Taburski]

But what he usually sees in these accidental overdose videos, I feel my heart.

[Anika Collins]

Racing, I feel anxious, I feel terrified. And the symptoms are much more consistent with anxiety, fear, panic, and even something called the nocebo effect.

[Dan Taburski]

The nocebo effect. If you really, truly believe strongly enough that something bad is happening, that something is making you sick, you can have actual physical symptoms in your body. But Anika says that what they show on the news was only a small part of what happened to her. If the whole thing had been shown, she says, you'd see the kind of shutting down that he was looking for.

[Annika Collins]

You lose total control. I told my husband the next day that if they would have told me, I would have peed myself on the floor in the courtroom. I would not have been surprised.

[Dan Taburski]

Wow.

[Annika Collins]

I could feel nothing. Like, you know, at other times I was freaking out. I mean, with no question that I was freaking out, panic mode and fighting that off.

[Tom Sinan]

I can't dispute that you had some reaction. I am only disputing or I'm asking you to question, was it actually an overdose?

[Dan Taburski]

There's another reason that Chief Seinen is skeptical, because.

[Tom Sinan]

And like I've told people so far, if it was real and we were able to confirm it, you would be the first one in the United States to actually Confirm it. And if that was confirmed, that's important information.

[Dan Taburski]

Has there ever been a blood test that confirmed that somebody overdosed, had a secondhand fentanyl overdose?

[Tom Sinan]

I am not aware of any.

[Dan Taburski]

The hospital standard is usually a urine tox screen. Blood tests at a lab, even better. But in all the cases of accidental fentanyl overdose that we have been able to track, 332 and counting, the number of tox screens or blood tests that came back positive for fentanyl. So the blood test that they ran at the hospital did not test for fentanyl.

[Tom Sinan]

We now know that the blood test.

[Dan Taburski]

Was not performed on the deputy.

[Tom Sinan]

So we don't truly know if he had fentanyl in his system.

[Dan Taburski]

As far as we can tell, one at a state prison in Alaska, and even that one wasn't independent. Confirmed, but no positive tox screen in the original case of those two cops featured in that DEA video. Not in any of the other 331 cases we tracked around the country. And not in the case of Annika Collins. Her tox screen, she says, was negative.

[Annika Collins]

I immediately was like, I don't understand why nothing's showing up. If you're saying you have no doubt this is what happened.

[Dan Taburski]

Here's how she says her doctor explained it.

[Annika Collins]

And he said there are two very simple explanations for that. First, it's something that we're not testing for yet. And I know that parafluorofentanol was brand new at the time. The other reason is, is that it was such. They only test drug tests only have a certain threshold where they show up. And if it was below that threshold, that would have been the other reason that it would not have shown up in a drug screen.

[Dan Taburski]

Right. But still not below the threshold of impacting somebody if it were ingested.

[Annika Collins]

That's exactly right.

[Dan Taburski]

Does it drive you a little nuts that the tox report came back negative?

[Annika Collins]

No, no. It happens. I understand. I understand. It happens. It is what it is. If it was something that I ingested that they weren't testing for, that's not on anybody. It just is what it is.

[Dan Taburski]

Besides, says Anika, they gave her Narcan. What does that tell you?

[Annika Collins]

Narcan only works on an opiate. It doesn't work on anything else. And the Narcan brought me out of. Didn't last for very long, but it would bring me out of it. Like, I would snap to and know what was going on for a few seconds.

[Dan Taburski]

But that could be chalked up to another psychological phenomenon. The thing about Narcan is that it's made to treat suspected overdose. So if you're not overdosing, Narcan won't hurt you. It won't really do anything. And if it does do something, if it does help revive you, that could be the placebo effect. It only works because you believe it will. Belief gets you out of the psychogenic illness, just like belief is what got you there in the first place. But Anika maintains it's real and it's happening all the time.

[Annika Collins]

Mm. And I've heard about cases like that all over the place.

[Dan Taburski]

Just recently, she says it happened in their local jail to a deputy and a couple corrections officers. But that case didn't make the news.

[Annika Collins]

I mean, I think it probably happens more than we even hear about. People are just so tired of being called liars that they don't want to, you know, they don't want to talk about it anymore.

[Dan Taburski]

And as far as whether we believe her about what happened to her in.

[Annika Collins]

Court that day, it makes no difference to me. I mean, it really doesn't. I know that that seems unbelievable, but it doesn't. I know what happened. Everybody that was in that courtroom that day knows what happened. And, I mean, honestly, it makes no difference what people think. I know what happened, and that's it.

[Dan Taburski]

You know, I got into a fight with my producers about this episode. I mean, not a physical fight, but I'm not afraid of those chumps. They argue because they think I'm chicken shit, that after laying out all this information, they wonder why I just don't come out and say that I think Annika Collins was a victim of mass psychogenic illness and that this example seems particularly clear cut. Frankly, it's harder than I thought it'd be, Especially when she rejects it so strongly, when she is so sure of her own experience. But here's what I've also learned. When Annika Collins says, I know what happened and that's it. Or when someone in the CIA with Havana syndrome says that he has absolutely zero doubt. Or when a girl suffering in LeRoy New York says, I know myself, I know that's not it. The truth here is mass psychogenic illness doesn't care what you know. This isn't about the known anything. This is about the unknown. That place where our understanding of neurology and psychology can't quite get at, at least not yet. Was Annika Collins hysterical? I can't say for sure, but I don't think she can either. And as respectful as we might want to be to let a person define their own medical experience without someone like me yipping up their leg like a chihuahua. We also can't do the other thing. We can't all go on living in different worlds that seem the same, but where different facts apply. Because this is about more than just the people experiencing the symptoms.

[Tom Sinan]

So look, man, I get the human aspect of this. I get the human side of it. I get they're experiencing something. But here's the problem is when this starts causing the potential for more people to die, then I think it's important to tell the truth.

[Dan Taburski]

The fear of getting near fentanyl can slow first responders from helping people who are actually overdosing. Fear of fentanyl means hospitals sometimes separate overdose victims and could delay treatment for safety protocols that take time in situations where there is no time. There's more and it's not hypothetical.

[Anika Collins]

People are literally serving jail time because they exposed a police officer to fentanyl.

[Dan Taburski]

Some municipalities have begun charging drug users with assault. The crime simply exposing police officers to fentanyl in the course of a police stop or an arrest.

[Anika Collins]

To spend months or years in prison as these people have because of something that is scientifically impossible is deeply disturbing to me. I don't think people should be in jail for crimes that are not real.

[Dan Taburski]

And to make this perfect storm even more perfect, every time it happens to a police officer. Come on, come on, Courtney. Chances are it all happens on body cam. Okay, it's foreign officer, possible exposure to preventable or something.

[Tom Sinan]

I'm getting my.

[Dan Taburski]

You got yours out. Mass psychogenic illness you'll remember is at line of sight illness when others see it happening. That's how it spreads. And police body cams, the tools that were intended to stop police brutality have unwittingly become the perfect built in vector for spread.

[Tom Sinan]

It is powerful to see a police officer go down when you see an officer that believes they have been exposed. Whether it's real or not, it is a powerful image.

[Dan Taburski]

The psychogenic overdose creates a video. The video sparks more psychogenic overdoses which creates more videos. And the longer it goes on, the harder it is going to be for everyone to just make it back to Earth. 616 A World in Common with shared experience. So the next episode is our last episode and we're going to head back to Leroy New York to see how that outbreak there finally came to an end. But first, one more quick story to get you in the mood. And I swear to God this is the last time you're going to hear a sentence like this next one coming out of Me, I promise. But shortly after the outbreak in leroy ended, the girls at another high school begin to experience mysterious symptoms that no one could explain. This school is in Danvers, Massachusetts. Eighteen girls there came down with what they were calling hiccups, tics, grunts, and yelps. As in leroy, almost all the affected girls in Danvers played on the school sports teams. But unlike in leroy, there were no giant town meetings, no catastrophizing in the media, no Emran Brockovich, no affected girls and their families come forward in the press, no acknowledgment from the school or the state that this might be an H word thing. Unlike in leroy, the hysteria around the possible hysteria in Danvers never materialized. Eventually, the symptoms appear to have resolved themselves. In the end, the state quietly released reports saying there was no environmental or infectious cause of the outcome outbreak, no mention of mass psychogenic illness. However, an internal memo from a state health official would later be uncovered that said they couldn't rule in or out that possibility. But you know what's really interesting? We shouldn't be surprised that Danvers, Massachusetts was able to keep a lid on their outbreak. In fact, Danvers is a place that knows a thing or two about how to cover the tracks of a suspected mass psychogenic illness. They had done it before in 1752. That is when they changed the name of the village to Danvers. A fresh start from what it had originally been known as Salem, Massachusetts. Goosebumps. Right, here's my takeaway. You can call it Salem, or you can call it Danvers. We're still dealing with the same old phenomenon. You can call it mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness or the H word. It's still real and it's part of the human experience. And you can call it Leroy, or you can call it Leroy, but this outbreak is still going to end one way or the other. And somehow, remarkably, the people in leroy find a way to pick one way and the other. That's next time on the series finale of Hysterical. Number one, I don't have conversion disorder.

[Annika Collins]

I never did.

[Anika Collins]

Tonight we have some news. Some of the girls apparently have gotten better over the past three weeks.

[Dan Taburski]

How are you doing now?

[Tom Sinan]

Better.

[Dan Taburski]

And I understand conversion disorder worked.

[Hoda Kotb]

It was accurate for those other girls that it worked for.

[Dan Taburski]

As soon as I was like, I have a real answer for you, they were like, no, we're done.

[Annika Collins]

We're good.

[Dan Taburski]

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad free right now. By joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey and if you have a tip about a story that you think we should investigate, please write to [e-mail] tips Hysterical is a production of Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Our lead producer is Henry Malofsky. Our associate producer is Marie Alexa Kavanagh Producer, Sophie Bridges Managing Producer Erin Kelly Senior Producer, Lena Mastitis Additional production by Zandra Ellen Diane Hodson is our editor. Our Executive editor is Joel Lovell. Fact checking by Natsumi Ajisaka Mixing by Hannis Brown Our head of sound and engineering is Raj Makhija. Original music composed and Performed by Dina McAbee Legal Services for Pineapple street from Crystal Tupia for Wondery. Our senior producers are Lizzie Bassett and Claire Chambers Coordinating producer Mariah Gossett Senior Managing Producer, Callum Plews Hysterical is written, written and executive produced by me. I'm Dan Taburski. Our executive producers for Pineapple street are Max Linsky, Henry Malofsky, Asha Soludja and Jenna Weiss Berman. Executive producers for Wondery are Morgan Jones, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent. Thanks for listening.

[Annika Collins]

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