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1:18

Meghan crews grew up eating tons

1:20

of shellfish. I'm

1:22

from Shreveport, Louisiana. So

1:25

we have lots of crawfish. and

1:27

seafood, and all the

1:30

shrimps.

1:30

And she particularly loved

1:32

it on special occasions.

1:34

So for my 21st birthday,

1:36

I decided I would get all the seafood. So

1:38

that's what I did. Go pick out

1:40

all my blue crabs I'm so excited.

1:43

We have, like, five pounds.

1:44

Meghan boiled the crabs in some water

1:46

with a splash of orange juice and

1:48

sat down to eat with her husband.

1:49

I was sitting there eating my crab.

1:52

Totally everything was fine. I was happy. I

1:54

have my daggers living my best

1:56

life. but pretty

1:57

soon she started feeling kind of

1:59

weird. I started

2:01

getting really edgy for a second

2:03

and then I think I went to go pee And

2:05

then

2:05

when I went to go pee, I'd like pulled

2:07

down my pants and there's welts all over my

2:09

legs and all over my

2:11

body. And I realized that something

2:13

was wrong. And so

2:15

I was like, I'm gonna take a shower. That seems

2:17

like a good option to do. Turns out you're

2:19

not supposed to take a shower. because then everything

2:22

started to get worse. And

2:24

then I, like, came out to my husband. He was

2:26

like, why do you look like that? And I'm

2:29

I don't know why I looked like that. Why am I turning

2:31

purple? What is going on?

2:33

They didn't know what to do, so they decided

2:35

to get to the hospital as fast as they could.

2:38

he's like past these lights.

2:40

I was feeling really light headed and I felt like I

2:42

might pass out, but I was also terrified to

2:44

pass out because I was like, what if

2:46

I don't get to the hospital in time?

2:47

They finally got there

2:49

and it was basically a ghost town.

2:51

It's like midnight. It's the graveyard

2:53

shift. No one really wants to be

2:55

there. And then I'm getting admitted, and I'm just

2:57

trying to, like, I, like, walk up to the

2:59

lady, and I'm just, like, hi,

3:01

I think I'm having anaphylaxis, like,

3:04

almost blue in the face, but also in

3:06

panicking

3:06

on top. Anaphylaxis

3:08

is a full body response to an allergy.

3:11

symptoms

3:11

can be different from person to person,

3:13

but typically the throat's wells

3:16

making it hard to breathe, blood pressure

3:18

drops, and the heart rate shoots up.

3:21

people

3:21

can die from it. And when the doctors

3:23

finally saw Meghan, they were

3:24

floored. So

3:26

then they called the med students in because they

3:28

were like, this is the worst thing we've seen

3:30

the worst case of anaphylaxis. I'm

3:32

like, come Let's go. You know, it's

3:34

my birthday. It's a party at this point. Right?

3:36

The nurses eventually got some epinephrine. That's

3:39

the stuff in an EpiPen. And they gave

3:41

it to Meghan through an IV to stop

3:43

the anaphylaxis.

3:44

My doctor asked me, he was like, so what'd you

3:46

eat? And then I told him, and he's like, oh, shellfish.

3:48

Well, how often do you eat that? I'm like, all the

3:51

time. So he was like, well,

3:53

I'm guessing that's probably what caused it,

3:55

but it was just very odd because I've ate it my

3:57

whole life.

3:58

Meghan couldn't remember having food allergies

3:59

at all as a kid. I don't

4:01

I can't even tell you how much random stuff I ate.

4:04

I never died then.

4:05

And now Meghan's not just allergic to

4:07

shellfish. She can't eat peanuts

4:09

anymore or garlic. or

4:11

a whole bunch of other foods used to love.

4:13

I had relatively twenty two allergies

4:16

erupt around the age of twenty

4:18

one.

4:19

But Meghan's not the only

4:21

one who's more allergic than she used to be.

4:23

According to allergist Scott Citra,

4:25

more and more people Both

4:28

kids and adults are developing

4:30

allergies. Come on. You know, if

4:32

you're someone who's over the age of forty

4:34

or so, you were a kid in

4:36

school your friends

4:38

didn't really have food

4:40

allergies. You have kids now. Oh

4:42

my gosh. You know, like several kids in the

4:44

classroom have food allergies. I mean, sort of like a,

4:46

you know, you don't have to be a scientist to say,

4:48

hey, wait a minute. It's not really a question that

4:50

there has been an increase. The question

4:52

really is why? I'm

4:55

no. I'm Hassonfeld. And this week, I'm unexplainable.

4:58

Why are so many more people getting

5:00

food allergies? and is there

5:02

anything we can do about it?

5:17

Okay.

5:19

Umer Erfan. Hello, no. You've

5:21

been reporting on the rise

5:23

in allergies for vox. Before

5:26

we get to the rise itself and what's

5:28

going on over there, Let's make sure we just have

5:30

our basic concepts in order

5:32

here. What exactly is an allergy?

5:34

An allergy is like a false alarm in the

5:36

immune system. It involves a very particular

5:38

mechanism that scientists think that we evolve

5:41

to help us deal with parasites. Mhmm.

5:43

These are things like roundworms and hookworms.

5:45

But occasionally, it seems like the immune

5:47

system can get confused. It can go from targeting

5:50

parasites to targeting peanuts. And

5:52

then as a result, the immune system starts

5:54

doing all these things that can actually be harmful

5:56

to you. So I talked to Scott Stittura

5:58

about this who we heard from at the top. He's a pediatric

6:00

allergist at the Mount Sinai School

6:02

of Medicine. and he told me that the responses

6:04

can range widely from things like

6:06

rashes and hives all the way up to anaphylactic

6:09

shock, and that can send you to the emergency room.

6:11

it's totally counterproductive. I mean, why should

6:13

I be eating something? And I all of a sudden swell

6:15

up, can't breathe? You know, that seems kind of

6:17

ridiculous. but this is the

6:19

same system, the same immune components

6:22

that fight parasites. So

6:24

you're basically saying that an

6:26

allergy may have

6:28

developed in response to something that is

6:30

actively harmful. But at this point, you know, with

6:32

something like peanuts and shellfish, someone

6:34

going into anaphylactic shock from,

6:37

say, Showfish is really

6:39

just their body turning on itself.

6:41

Well, not the body turning on itself. That would be an

6:43

autoimmune disease. Okay. This is a body turning

6:45

on an

6:46

outside source of

6:48

an allergen

6:49

that is otherwise benign. So

6:52

autoimmune diseases actually have a slightly

6:54

different mechanism. Okay. With an allergy, your body is

6:56

turning on something that's foreign to it,

6:58

but benign. And that's because your

7:00

immune system has this very delicate task

7:02

tried to sort what is part of you and what

7:04

is not part of you, but they also have

7:06

to sort the gray area as well. These are

7:08

the things that are not part of you, but harmless

7:10

and these are things that are not part of you that

7:12

are harmful. And so the immune

7:14

system learns to recognize dangerous

7:17

pathogens and ones that can live

7:19

with us and may actually be beneficial to our

7:21

immune system. And that's actually a

7:23

little bit trickier. And in that gray

7:25

area, that's where the immune system can

7:27

get scrambled. And that's where we

7:29

see allergies arise. They start overreacting

7:31

or start treating something as harmful, that

7:33

is otherwise actually harmless.

7:36

though So if peanuts

7:37

are harmless, like, how does the body start

7:39

getting tricked into thinking that they're harmful?

7:42

Like, how do you actually start getting allergic

7:44

to peanuts or shellfish or something like that?

7:46

Right now, we don't really have a good answer for that,

7:48

and scientists are hard at work trying to find

7:50

out. It's an important mystery because

7:53

we're finding that more and more people

7:55

are becoming allergic. to peanuts and to

7:57

shellfish. And they're having some very severe

7:59

allergies so that health burden from allergies

8:01

is actually increasing. So how

8:03

much have allergies actually

8:05

gone up recently? The conventional

8:07

wisdom here in the US, maybe going back to the

8:09

nineties, was that in textbooks you'd

8:11

see that about four percent of kids had

8:13

food allergies, maybe two percent of adults. the

8:15

thinking was that kids would grow out of their allergies

8:17

as they got older. But now,

8:20

the studies from the US and other

8:22

locations are saying that it's more like

8:24

eight or ten percent of children

8:26

and around the same percentage

8:29

for adults. So so a

8:31

little bit higher in kids and like a lot

8:33

higher in adults. That's right. And, you know,

8:35

in some instances, we're talking about on

8:37

average, you know, roughly one in

8:39

every thirteen kids has a foodborne

8:41

allergy. Oh, that's like two kids per

8:43

every classroom. So when we're talking

8:44

about allergies going up, do we know if this

8:46

is more people being born with allergies

8:49

or or more people developing allergies

8:51

over time? It

8:52

seems to be a mix of both. Okay.

8:54

Doctors are finding that more children

8:57

are being diagnosed with allergies

8:59

as babies and as toddlers and

9:01

so on. but more adults are

9:03

also reporting that they're becoming sensitive

9:05

to foods, that they weren't sensitive

9:07

to before. So it seems like we're

9:09

seeing both an increase in people

9:11

born with allergies and people acquiring

9:13

allergies later in

9:14

life. Do

9:17

scientists have any idea at all?

9:19

Why this is happening? Like, why

9:21

allergies are going up so much? Well, one of the

9:23

best guesses and the one that seems to have the

9:25

most Support behind it is this idea called the

9:27

hygiene hypothesis. Okay. You

9:29

know, remember how I said earlier that this was a

9:31

mechanism in your immune system that used to deal

9:33

with parasites. well, as we've

9:35

developed this society in the

9:37

US and around the world, as we've

9:39

improved sanitation and, you know,

9:41

spending even less time outdoors, we're

9:43

less likely to be infected by parasites.

9:46

You start living in houses. You

9:48

start being able to protect

9:50

yourself with antibiotics, with vaccines.

9:52

you start eating food that is clean.

9:54

It comes in a can. You're using a

9:56

dishwasher that really cleans every

9:58

speck of dirt from your

9:59

dishes. and your immune system is seeing a

10:02

very different pattern of

10:04

bacteria.

10:05

And so without these opportunities to

10:07

be infected, this part of the immune

10:09

system stays revved up in some people,

10:11

and then it can turn on more innocuous

10:14

things. For example, the

10:16

danders in our pets or the pollens in our

10:18

air or in this case the

10:20

proteins that are in our foods. And

10:22

so we've seen allergies rise

10:24

with development in countries as sanitation has

10:26

improved. We see lower rates of allergies

10:28

in people who live in rural areas, but higher

10:30

rates in people who live in urban areas.

10:32

Mhmm. so there seems to be this very

10:34

strong association with

10:36

a heightened level of cleanliness and

10:38

sanitation and allergies. This is like the

10:40

general idea behind, I assume

10:42

parents who wanna be like, oh, we have a kid, like like to

10:44

put him on the subway and have him like a

10:46

pole. I mean, don't like a subway poll

10:48

that's gross for a number of reasons beyond

10:51

allergies. But, yeah, there is this idea that

10:53

maybe living in a less hermetically

10:55

sealed environment early in

10:57

life may be beneficial. Mhmm.

10:59

And now more scientists are actually

11:01

advocating for a graduated

11:03

and deliberate way of exposing

11:05

infants and toddlers to potential allergens.

11:07

But if hygiene

11:09

theory is responsible for the rise in allergies

11:12

here, like, why is this only

11:15

happening now. It's not like we didn't have

11:17

sanitation in the nineties. You're

11:19

right. Sanitation has been improving

11:21

for hundreds of years, and we've been seeing this in many

11:23

parts of the world. So why are we seeing

11:25

such a big pick up now in the past

11:27

twenty to thirty years? That's not

11:29

entirely clear. And for something like allergies,

11:31

it's pretty likely that there are multiple

11:33

factors at work here. So even if the hygiene

11:35

hypothesis seems to be the strongest

11:37

theory, there might be some other element

11:39

that is playing a role here as well.

11:41

So

11:42

if this hygiene theory doesn't explain the rise

11:44

in allergies on its own what are

11:46

some other factors that might be contributing

11:48

here? One idea that scientists are looking

11:50

into is the timing of

11:52

food exposure. Okay. For instance, this idea that

11:54

perhaps if a baby is vulnerable to developing

11:56

allergies, they should not be exposed to

11:58

foods that could potentially trigger those allergies

12:01

Don't give that baby milk protein

12:03

until age one, egg until age

12:05

two, peanuts, tree nuts, and fish

12:07

until age three.

12:08

And that

12:09

was well intention, but it didn't have a lot

12:11

of research behind it. But now the thinking

12:14

has almost completely reversed. that if you

12:16

are at higher risk abilities, it might be a

12:18

good idea to expose these babies on a

12:20

very slow graduated basis deliberately

12:22

early in life. ingesting the

12:24

food lets the gut immune

12:26

system see it and

12:28

learn about it in a positive

12:30

way. Like, this is something that's nourishment

12:32

for me. and that will help desensitize

12:34

them. Whereas if you're not eating it,

12:36

it's still in the environment, meaning that there's

12:38

still milk in the environment, there's still egg in the

12:40

environment, there's a peanut around you,

12:42

all of those proteins that should have been in your

12:44

mouth are instead all around you and on

12:46

your skin, and it's hyping

12:49

up an immune response that's counterproductive.

12:52

Then if you were waiting until you're one

12:54

or two to eat it and you then

12:56

ate it, it's too late. Your immune system

12:58

already learned to fight that protein that

13:00

it should have learned to accept by eating

13:02

it early on. And so that's one

13:04

other theory is that the timing of when we're

13:06

exposed to certain types of foods and

13:08

allergies of potential threats

13:10

is changing in the modern world. And if

13:12

we change the timing of that exposure, that

13:14

could help counteract that trend. So

13:16

it seems like hygiene theory

13:18

combined with some of

13:20

this timing of food exposure could

13:22

explain a lot of this rise in allergies.

13:24

Are there

13:25

reasons to be skeptical of both of these

13:28

theories together? I

13:28

mean, they do seem to explain a lot, but they don't again

13:31

explain everything. What do you mean?

13:33

Well, for one thing, why are adults then

13:35

developing allergies as well? Right?

13:37

Adults and children sometimes are becoming

13:39

sensitized to the same things. So

13:41

what what does that work there? Is there

13:43

a common environmental exposure

13:46

for instance? that might be making people

13:48

more vulnerable to allergies. Yeah. It seems

13:50

like hygiene theory and food exposure

13:52

are

13:52

all about kids

13:53

having allergies. Are there any

13:56

ideas about, you know, what's behind

13:58

this rise in adult onset allergies?

14:00

That's also a big mystery. there's

14:02

a few ideas that scientists are studying

14:04

as well. One is this idea that

14:06

perhaps in a post infection

14:08

state, like maybe if an adult got sick with the

14:10

flu or some other serious illness. In

14:13

that period after the infection,

14:15

their body's immune system might

14:17

be recalibrating. and in

14:19

that phase end up targeting something

14:21

that is otherwise harmless. By

14:23

post infection state, you mean sort of like

14:25

after COVID or someone that might

14:27

have long COVID like these lingering symptoms?

14:29

That's right. You know, even with influenza

14:31

and many of these other common infections

14:33

that we see We're starting to

14:35

appreciate more that they can actually have symptoms that

14:37

last for a long time even after

14:39

the virus or the bacteria that caused the

14:41

illness has been defeated by the body. Perhaps

14:43

that's playing a role in adult onset allergies

14:45

as well. Like, maybe you had an illness, you

14:47

got better, but your immune system in

14:49

that phase got redirected

14:52

into targeting something that

14:54

really it shouldn't be targeting. But

14:56

beyond that, I mean, I think scientists are trying to be

14:58

open minded here and just see what else is

15:00

at

15:00

play. So we've

15:03

got all these possible explanations

15:05

here. What makes

15:07

this so complicated

15:09

to solve? Like, what are scientists still

15:12

wrestling with? For one thing, it's

15:14

really hard to isolate any one of these

15:16

variables because, you know, we we talk about allergies.

15:18

They do individuals, but when we're talking about the rise in

15:20

allergies, we're talking about something that's

15:22

happening across tens of thousands, if not millions of

15:24

people. And there are so many different other

15:26

variables that are at play as well.

15:28

you know, the environment that they live in, their genetics

15:30

susceptibility, other kinds of environmental

15:32

exposures, other kinds of sociological

15:34

exposures as well. So scientists want to

15:36

have a little bit of humility here and

15:38

say that, you know, we don't fully grasp all

15:40

the things that are at play when it comes to

15:42

these allergies.

15:48

After the break, just how

15:50

allergic are we gonna get?

15:52

Is everyone gonna get allergic

15:54

to everything? That's

15:56

coming up next.

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Humira, we're

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back. Hey, Nom. So

19:00

how should I wrap my head around exactly

19:03

how bad this rise in allergies is.

19:05

Like, are we all gonna just get

19:07

more and more allergic until

19:09

everyone has allergies? To answer your second

19:11

question first, the answer

19:13

is no. scientists don't think that

19:15

we're all going to get allergies. And if

19:17

you don't have allergies right now, the researchers

19:19

that I talked to told me that you really

19:21

shouldn't lose sleep about it. Most

19:23

people don't develop allergies as adults.

19:25

And the ones that do, they're just

19:27

one part of this rise in overall allergies

19:30

we're seeing in the population. Now,

19:32

while allergy rates are going up,

19:34

it does appear that in some circumstances that

19:36

it's reaching a plateau, it seems to be leveling off when

19:38

it comes to certain types of foodborne allergies.

19:41

And that sort of indicates that there might be

19:43

just an upper limit to how many people in

19:45

the population are susceptible to developing

19:47

allergies. So, for getting to this plateau, why

19:49

should we be worried? Is the

19:51

problem just kind of solving itself?

19:53

A plateau

19:54

means that it's

19:55

staying level. It's not going down. We're

19:58

talking about close to thirty three million

20:00

people in the US having food allergies.

20:02

That's about one in ten people.

20:04

So even if that rate holds steady, right now, that's

20:06

a huge health burden, especially for families

20:08

with kids. You know, that cost them about twenty

20:10

five billion dollars per year.

20:12

And not only that, like, your quality of life goes down, like,

20:14

imagine being paranoid about

20:16

eggs being in anything because eggs are

20:18

used to make everything. soy

20:20

is used to make everything. Peanuts are used to make

20:23

everything. And again, people still die

20:25

from allergies as well, like people with severe

20:27

anaphylaxis do die.

20:29

It's not in huge numbers, but it can be fatal.

20:31

And knowing that that's a possible

20:33

outcome adds to the stress of dealing with

20:35

it. And, you know, we're talking everyone

20:37

from little kids to adults. And so this is a

20:39

pretty common experience that

20:41

is, you know, becoming increasingly more

20:44

common. And then

20:45

let's

20:46

just say you do develop

20:49

adult onset allergies or, you

20:51

know, if you're just one of the

20:53

unlucky children that seem to be born

20:55

with more allergies today? Like, what are you supposed to do?

20:57

Are these things that can be cured or

20:59

are these things that just have to be managed? Right

21:01

now, the big thing is management.

21:03

with foodborne allergies, I mean, the best thing is to

21:05

simply avoid the food. Yeah. In most

21:08

circumstances, just try not to eat

21:10

it. Beyond that, there are some experiments going on about

21:12

how to use techniques like

21:14

immunotherapy. Mhmm. And I talked to Richie

21:16

Gupte, this pediatrician and allergy research

21:18

at Northwestern University. and

21:20

she described this process by where you gradually

21:23

introduce somebody to a food that they're

21:25

allergic to over time in order to build

21:27

up a

21:28

tolerance. under an allergist supervision,

21:31

you slowly up dose

21:33

until you can tolerate, you

21:35

know, certain amount of peanuts. And

21:38

then you keep that amount in your

21:40

diet so that your body keeps

21:42

recognizing it. that would

21:42

sort of be like an allergy vaccination

21:45

almost like give you a tiny amount of peanut

21:47

and kind of vaccinate you against peanuts. Is that is

21:49

that a wrong analogy? I kind of I

21:51

mean, I mean, you are talking about, yeah, like, introducing

21:53

the immune system to something. But, like, with

21:55

a vaccine, you're teaching your immune system to fight

21:57

something. Whereas with this, you're trying to teach your

21:59

immune system, that it's harmless. That's really like a reverse

22:02

vaccine. Yeah. Basically. Yeah.

22:03

You're trying to basically, like, tell them to tell the immune

22:05

system, hey, this stuff is friendly. It's

22:08

harmless. don't overreact, take a deep

22:10

breath. Okay. But beyond that, there

22:12

isn't really that much to do because we don't

22:14

really know how to cure an

22:17

allergy per se. So if

22:19

there's no way to cure it, is there

22:21

any way to prevent being allergic to

22:24

something? There isn't as

22:26

far as we know for for adults. But

22:28

I mean, for young infants, it does seem like the

22:30

earlier exposure to certain types of allergens

22:32

does play a role. you know, there was

22:34

this study that was done in the UK called the

22:36

LEAP

22:36

study. It was a landmark study where their

22:39

theory was, okay, maybe if the

22:41

immune system sees this food in that

22:43

first year of life, they're getting used to it and they

22:45

don't have the allergy.

22:47

They did a randomized controlled

22:49

trial of infants and they exposed

22:52

them to peanut proteins. They found that incorporating

22:54

these peanut proteins into some of their food,

22:56

into their baby formula, in their

22:58

diet early in life, that led to a much

23:00

lower rate of peanut allergies. they

23:03

decreased their development of peanut allergy

23:05

by eighty percent. What's

23:07

exciting

23:07

about that is knowing

23:10

that if we counsel

23:12

new parents for their

23:14

babies correctly and they start peanut

23:16

products

23:16

and potentially other food

23:19

allergens, early in life, their immune system

23:22

recognizes it and does not

23:24

then go to fight it.

23:26

So that's a

23:27

part of the challenge here is figuring out what

23:29

to introduce babies to and when. And

23:31

if you can do that, then maybe you can

23:34

help stem this rise in

23:36

new allergic reactions in

23:38

kids. So is this are

23:40

we are we calling for, like, a peanut,

23:42

a maricore, like, mobilized, the

23:44

country get tiny amounts of peanuts to all babies across

23:46

the country? Not quite. You know, it's not as

23:48

though we can make a categorical recommendation

23:51

across the board because

23:53

allergies are very particular and very specific to

23:55

individuals. So while we are seeing a society

23:57

wide increase in them, the way they

23:59

manifest in individuals is very

24:02

unique. A lot of researchers say it's

24:04

worth getting diagnosed, to worth

24:06

actually seeing an allergist and figuring

24:08

out what your reaction was when you

24:10

have a bad reaction to a food, because

24:12

it may not necessarily be the case that you have to

24:14

avoid it forever. The

24:15

more you know about what you

24:17

have, you know, the more you know

24:19

how to manage it. So

24:21

when we've got this

24:22

collective public health problem that's

24:24

based on a bunch of hyper

24:27

individualized responses to

24:30

allergies, what

24:30

are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to solve a problem

24:32

like this? I mean, you can approach it

24:34

from multiple angles because like you said, this is the

24:36

a problem with has many

24:38

different routes and thus requires many different solutions.

24:40

And so one is, you know,

24:42

trying to inoculate the

24:45

individual, trying to make them desensitize

24:47

to them, to to the allergen to begin

24:49

with and trying to head off the allergy preventing it

24:51

from beginning. And then if they do develop an

24:53

allergy to minimize exposure, so

24:55

to sure that they're not being exposed

24:57

to something dangerous and to make sure that their symptoms

24:59

can be easily mitigated and that people

25:01

know, for instance, if they see a severe allergic

25:03

reaction, how to use an EpiPen.

25:05

if they do see somebody with an allergic reaction of

25:07

building a culture around that. So

25:09

if you see someone and they're turning purple

25:12

and they can't breathe and like you

25:14

know that they're not choking, Check them

25:16

for the EpiPen, and

25:18

do remember that it's blue to

25:20

the sky and orange to

25:21

the thigh. Meghan who

25:24

talked to us about her seafood allergy at the beginning

25:26

of the episode, she told me that going out

25:28

to eat makes her nervous that the

25:30

wrong exposure could land her in the

25:32

emergency room again. It's

25:33

like Russian roulette. You

25:35

never know. Something could happen. It's

25:37

a waiting game. In

25:38

the foreseeable future, allergies are here to stay, and we

25:40

might not know fully why these allergies are on

25:42

the rise, but to whatever extent that we can

25:45

mitigate allergies to

25:47

reduce their harm on individuals and help

25:49

the people with allergies live,

25:51

you know, productive, fruitful, and

25:54

like, non anxiety inducing lives, and then I

25:56

think that is a worthwhile endeavor.

25:58

No

25:58

one chooses to be allergic to a

25:59

whole bunch of things. I

26:02

promise, like, me and all my

26:04

friends, most of us didn't have our

26:06

allergies on set until we got older.

26:08

So it's not that we

26:10

don't miss cinnamon buns. It's not that we don't miss the Reese's

26:12

Pieces. It's not any of that

26:14

stuff. It's

26:14

that we can't for our health.

26:20

This episode

26:23

was reported by Umer Erfan and

26:25

produced by me,

26:26

Manning Nguyen. there

26:28

was editing from Katherine Wells, Brian

26:31

Reznik, Meredith Hodnot,

26:33

and Noah Am

26:33

Hassonfeld, who also wrote the music. Christian

26:36

Ayala did the mixing and the sound

26:38

design, Zoey Mullich, did the

26:40

fact checking, and somewhere deep in the

26:42

woods, Bird Pinkerton. found an

26:44

old key inscribed with an octopus. Additional

26:48

thank you to Alcistoides. If you

26:50

have any thoughts about this episode or ideas

26:52

for the show, please email us.

26:55

We're unexplainable at vox dot com, and we'd

26:57

also love it if you left us a review or

27:00

we're waiting. Unexplainable is part of the vox

27:02

media podcast network, and we'll be back

27:04

next week.

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