Épisodes

  • Why Doctors Tortured: The Unsettling Notebook from Tuol Sleng

    Why Doctors Tortured: The Unsettling Notebook from Tuol Sleng
    Oct 8 2026
    Why Doctors Tortured: The Unsettling Notebook from Tuol Sleng

    The notebook found in Tuol Sleng in 1978 recorded human experiments on at least seventeen detainees and was deliberately preserved, forcing a confrontation with how physicians used medical skill to harm. If international law after World War II spelled out clear prohibitions, why did trained doctors continue to perform and document torture under institutional sanction?

    In this episode, we explore that preserved record and the wider pattern across the twentieth century that links physicians, institutions, and state-sanctioned harm, asking how legal and ethical protections failed to stop medicalized brutality.

    Person: Josef Mengele
    Person: Hermann Fischer-Hüllstrung
    Date: 1978
    Event: Discovery of a notebook documenting human experiments at Tuol Sleng
    Instrument: Declaration of Geneva replaced the Hippocratic Oath

    - The Tuol Sleng notebook documented procedures performed on at least 17 detainees.
    - The Nuremberg Doctors' Trial in 1947 convicted 16 of 23 defendants and executed 7.
    - Six international legal instruments were built between 1945 and 1982 addressing medical ethics and torture.
    - The 1975 Declaration of Tokyo stated a doctor shall not participate in torture.
    - Beginning in the 1960s Soviet psychiatry used the diagnosis "sluggish schizophrenia" to pathologize dissent.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 min
  • When Healers Became Executioners: The Notebook That Proved It

    When Healers Became Executioners: The Notebook That Proved It
    Oct 7 2026
    When Healers Became Executioners: The Notebook That Proved It

    Cold professional care flipped into organized harm: in 1978 a medical-trained author methodically recorded human experiments inside a former Phnom Penh school-turned-prison, filing the notebook as official paperwork rather than hiding it. Across the twentieth century, trained physicians from Unit 731 to Soviet psychiatry documented procedures that reclassified people as non-patients - so why did prosecution and accountability so often never follow?

    In this episode, we lay out the documented cases and institutional instruments that turned medical practice into state violence, showing how codes like the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Geneva, and the Declaration of Tokyo were written in response to such breaches - and yet violations continued. How did documentation, professional habit, and changing diagnostic criteria enable healers to become executioners?

    Person: Josef Mengele
    Event: Unit Seven Thirty-One operations (1937-1945)
    Date: 1978 notebook entries
    Topic: Soviet diagnosis "sluggish schizophrenia" applied to dissent
    Instrument: Declaration of Tokyo (1975) stating physician must not participate in torture

    - The 1978 notebook was written inside a former Phnom Penh school converted into a prison and was officially filed rather than hidden.
    - Unit Seven Thirty-One operated from 1937 to 1945 and is reported to have tortured and killed up to 10,000 prisoners.
    - The Nuremberg Trials in the 1940s exposed physician-led experiments such as those by Josef Mengele at Auschwitz.
    - The Declaration of Tokyo was issued in 1975 by the World Medical Association asserting doctors shall not participate in torture.
    - Soviet psychiatrists invented the diagnosis "sluggish schizophrenia" to detain political dissidents without trial, using high-dose neuroleptics as "treatment."

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    27 min
  • The Medical Records That Exposed Decades of Human Experimentation

    The Medical Records That Exposed Decades of Human Experimentation
    Oct 6 2026
    The Medical Records That Exposed Decades of Human Experimentation

    The ordinary ledger can become a ledger of atrocity: a notebook found in 1978 at Tuol Sleng listed human experiments under a Khmer phrase translated as "pisaot menuh," and clinical charts from a New Zealand child psychiatric ward recorded electric shocks given as punishment. How did routine medical paperwork become the clearest proof that trained healers were ordered to harm - and who was ever held accountable?

    In this episode, we follow the paper trail that links medical records from Tuol Sleng to Lake Alice and to earlier wartime programs, showing how dates, signatures, and clinical detail reveal practices labeled "human experiments" and "torture." What does the persistence of those records tell us about how medicine was repurposed across different countries and decades?

    Person: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
    Date: 1978
    Location: Tuol Sleng (S-21), Phnom Penh
    Event: Human experiments recorded under the phrase "pisaot menuh"
    Case: Lake Alice child and adolescent unit (1972-1978)

    - Investigators found the Tuol Sleng notebook in 1978 inside the ruins of S-21 with pages documenting human experiments.
    - The Khmer phrase recorded for at least seventeen people in the Tuol Sleng notebook translates as "pisaot menuh" (human experiments).
    - Unit 731 operated from 1937 to 1945 with estimated death tolls reaching ten thousand people due to organized medical experiments.
    - Lake Alice admitted 362 patients to its child and adolescent unit between 1972 and 1978, many without diagnosed mental illness.
    - The Royal Commission of Inquiry found practices at Lake Alice amounted to torture, yet clinicians faced no criminal accountability.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    27 min
  • When Healers Harm: Doctors Who Turned Medicine Into Torture

    When Healers Harm: Doctors Who Turned Medicine Into Torture
    Oct 5 2026
    When Healers Harm: Doctors Who Turned Medicine Into Torture

    Trust in healers can be shattered by the fact that physicians have, in documented cases from Tuol Sleng to Lake Alice, deliberately used clinical skills to inflict suffering; how did oaths and ethics fail to stop human experiments and institutionalized harm? What allowed doctors to turn medical procedure into torture across continents and decades?

    In this episode, we lay out the documented pattern linking medical training to deliberate harm and trace how international frameworks responded - and why those responses left gaps. We map cases from World War II-era atrocities to later institutional abuses to ask: how did medicine become an instrument of cruelty?

    Person: Josef Mengele
    Event: Discovery of a Tuol Sleng notebook documenting human experiments
    Period: 1937-1978 (cases referenced span these years)
    Location: Tuol Sleng security prison, Phnom Penh
    Case: Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit admissions (362 young people)

    - The Tuol Sleng notebook recorded procedures performed on at least 17 human beings and named them "pisaot menuh" (human experiments).
    - Unit 731 operated between 1937 and 1945 and is estimated to have tortured and killed about 10,000 prisoners.
    - The Nuremberg Code established principles like informed consent and the right to withdraw after the 1939-1945 atrocities.
    - New Zealand's Royal Commission reviewed records of 362 young people admitted to Lake Alice between 1972 and 1978, many without documented mental illness.
    - Lake Alice administered unmodified electroconvulsive therapy to conscious children, applying current to induce convulsions without anesthesia or muscle relaxants.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    31 min
  • He Faked Their Pregnancies: The Doctor Who Manufactured Hope

    He Faked Their Pregnancies: The Doctor Who Manufactured Hope
    Oct 4 2026
    He Faked Their Pregnancies: The Doctor Who Manufactured Hope

    In this episode, we tell the record of that medical fraud from early claims about a baboon pregnancy through decades of patient care, the treatment protocol Jacobson used, and the legal outcome, asking how a respected title and a simple hormone injection allowed this scheme to operate in plain sight.

    Person: Cecil Byran Jacobson
    Date of conviction: 1992
    Counts: 52
    Location: Fairfax County, Virginia
    Birth date: October 2, 1936

    - Jacobson administered human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) injections as a fertility treatment that cause positive pregnancy tests.
    - Experts testified that ultrasound images Jacobson showed patients contained nearby organs or fecal matter, not fetuses.
    - Jacobson claimed in the 1960s to have implanted his sperm into a baboon that carried a pregnancy for four months; this claim was never published or peer reviewed.
    - He held the title Chief of the Reproductive Genetics Unit at George Washington University Medical School but had no specialist training in infertility medicine.
    - The fraud operated over years in a legitimate medical practice in Fairfax County before his 1992 conviction on 52 counts.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    28 min
  • The Doctor Who Faked Pregnancies: Inside Jacobson's Deception

    The Doctor Who Faked Pregnancies: Inside Jacobson's Deception
    Oct 3 2026
    The Doctor Who Faked Pregnancies: Inside Jacobson's Deception

    The shock of trusted medicine turned to betrayal: a doctor used injections of human chorionic gonadotropin to create positive pregnancy tests while ultrasound images shown to patients were actually organs or fecal matter. How did a respected reproductive geneticist convince at least fifteen women that they were bearing children when DNA and expert testimony later proved otherwise?

    In this episode, we tell the story of Cecil Bryan Jacobson and the clinic in Fairfax County, Virginia, where patients came after other options failed, the biological mechanism he exploited, the courtroom revelations that followed, and the unresolved questions about medical oversight and trust that remain.

    Person: Cecil Bryan Jacobson
    Date of birth: October 2, 1936
    Location: Fairfax County, Virginia
    Institution: George Washington University (Reproductive Genetics Unit)
    Confirmed children by DNA: at least 15

    - Jacobson claimed to have implanted a male baboon’s sperm into a female, resulting in a four-month pregnancy that was never published or independently verified.
    - He injected patients with human chorionic gonadotropin to produce positive home and clinical pregnancy tests.
    - Expert witnesses testified that ultrasound images Jacobson showed patients were actually nearby organs or fecal matter, not fetal tissue.
    - Jacobson had led the Reproductive Genetics Unit at George Washington University before opening a private clinic in the 1980s without documented specialized infertility training.
    - Investigations included DNA testing and federal grand jury proceedings that revealed a donor program investigators say never existed.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    25 min
  • He Built Babies Out of Hope: The Fairfax Fertility Fraud Revealed

    He Built Babies Out of Hope: The Fairfax Fertility Fraud Revealed
    Oct 2 2026
    He Built Babies Out of Hope: The Fairfax Fertility Fraud Revealed

    Hope turned into proof on blurry ultrasound prints and positive pregnancy tests-until the third month when the pregnancies vanished and investigators later found no donor program at all. Fifty-two convictions and at least fifteen confirmed children would follow; how did a respected reproductive genetics chief turn medical tools into instruments of loss?

    In this episode, we trace the arc of Cecil Byran Jacobson's Fairfax County clinic, the treatments he offered, the injections and ultrasound images patients trusted, and the federal probe that exposed the fraud-what exactly did investigators uncover about the donor program and the ultrasound evidence?

    Person: Cecil Byran Jacobson
    Date of birth: October 2, 1936
    Location: Fairfax County, Virginia
    Convictions: 52
    Confirmed children: at least 15

    - Jacobson served as Chief of the Reproductive Genetics Unit at George Washington University Medical School by the 1960s.
    - Investigators found no evidence that the promised anonymous donor insemination program ever existed.
    - Trial experts testified many ultrasound images Jacobson identified as fetuses were actually anatomical structures or, in some cases, fecal matter.
    - Jacobson injected patients with human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), the hormone detected by pregnancy tests.
    - The suspected total number of affected children reached as high as 75.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 min
  • The Doctor Who Created Pregnancies That Never Existed

    The Doctor Who Created Pregnancies That Never Existed
    Oct 1 2026
    The Doctor Who Created Pregnancies That Never Existed

    The idea that a single hormone injection and a grainy ultrasound could manufacture months of real hope and real grief is chilling: patients received hCG that made pregnancy tests positive and felt pregnancy symptoms, while ultrasounds Jacobson pointed to showed organs or fecal matter, not fetuses. How did one physician turn diagnostic signals into fabricated pregnancies and secretly father children in the same clinic?

    In this episode, we outline the two schemes that unfolded in a Fairfax County reproductive practice, laying out the hormone-based false pregnancies and the donor insemination program that produced unexpected paternity. What did the clinical record, expert testimony, and DNA results reveal about trust, authority, and the boundaries of medical practice?

    Person: Cecil Byran Jacobson
    Date of birth: October 2, 1936
    Location: Fairfax County, Virginia
    Education: Brown University; George Washington University Medical School (Chief of the Reproductive Genetics Unit)
    Hormone used: hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin)

    - Jacobson opened his Fairfax County practice in the 1980s and held the title Chief of the Reproductive Genetics Unit at George Washington University Medical School.
    - He injected patients with hCG, which caused home pregnancy tests to turn positive and produced pregnancy-like symptoms without an actual fetus.
    - Expert testimony in federal court identified ultrasound images Jacobson presented as consistent with organs or fecal matter, not fetuses.
    - Near the end of the third month, patients were often told their "fetus had died" after months of believing they were pregnant.
    - DNA testing revealed at least one child conceived via the clinic's donor program was biologically fathered by Cecil Jacobson.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 min