What podcast was I listening to?

December 12, 2019 7:01 PM

I'm trying to recall a particular podcast episode that I heard lately but I don't recall which podcast it was or even much else about the episode, just that the speaker mentioned that she had a sister who had lead poisoning and had some cognitive and maturity issues as a result.

I listen to a LOT of podcasts. At some point within the past 2 (?) months, I was listening to an episode where the speaker mentioned that her sister had lead poisoning, was an adult but still lived with parents, had some cognitive delays, and was immature. I don't believe that the sister with the lead poisoning was brought up again throughout the episode. I think that it was a storytelling podcast, but I've gone through the show notes for most of the ones that I subscribe to and I can't find any reference to this episode. Although I was listening to it lately, there's a chance that it was an old episode. Here is a list of the storytelling podcasts that I regularly listen to:

Heavyweight
Risk!
The Moth
the memory palace
This American Life
This is Actually Happening

Although these aren't storytelling podcasts per se, here are some others that I've listened to lately:
Invisibilia
Casefile
Radiolab
Planet Money
Hidden Brain
Criminal
Small Town Dicks
The Perfect Scam
You're Wrong About...
Over My Dead Body (Joe Exotic series)
Uncover (Sharmini series)
Bad Batch
Reply All

Any help in finding this episode would be greatly appreciated.

posted by mezzanayne to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

Oh man, I totally heard this, but listen to all the (top-level pods) you do! I have a hunch it is “This Is Actually...” I’ll start combing through. I feel like it was a few months ago at least.
posted by dreamphone at 7:22 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think it’s Episode 139 of This is Actually Happening. Check it out around 14 minutes in, when she is talking about her sister Emily. The details don’t all match what you describe, but it’s what jumped to mind for me.
posted by dreamphone at 7:38 PM on December 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love tiah. Too bad about the musical theme licensing trouble. The Tipper piece really matched well.
posted by j_curiouser at 7:50 PM on December 12, 2019

Response by poster: Thanks @dreamphone, but that's not it. The episode I'm thinking of specifically mentioned lead poisoning. Emily in TIAH 139 had a traumatic brain injury.
posted by mezzanayne at 8:39 PM on December 12, 2019

I am 100% up to date with This American Life, Heavyweight and Reply All, and it didn't happen on any of those because I would have remembered a detail like that, since lead poisoning is one of the things I have a bit of a fixation about.
posted by Acheman at 12:38 AM on December 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have just scrubbed through the TPWKY episode, and it's definitely not that. I've also Ctrl+Fd for "lead" all the transcripts of all the Planet Money episodes going back to September, and all the transcripts of Invisibilia ever, so you can rule those out too.
posted by Acheman at 4:22 AM on December 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

Could it have been the episode “Unleaded” from America Dissected? Sounds quite similar to that episode.

https://crooked.com/podcast/unleaded/
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:48 AM on December 13, 2019

Response by poster: Thanks for all of the help so far, everyone. I've never even heard of This Podcast Will Kill you or America Dissected (yay, 2 new ones to subscribe to!) so it can't be either of those.
posted by mezzanayne at 10:50 AM on December 13, 2019