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The Current Transcript for August 16, 2019

Host: Duncan McCue

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: He's a guy that there are probably 50 very important people that have a motive to kill him. We don't even know who they are. I'm not alleging that any of the people named, but we know there are some people that are in a lot of trouble because of Epstein.

DUNCAN MCCUE: Jeffrey Epstein was a well-connected American financier accused of underage sex trafficking and when he was found dead in his jail cell it sparked an eruption of conspiracy theories including that bit of speculation from Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Coming up we'll talk with a psychology professor about the Epstein case and why imaginations are running wild. Plus.

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VOICE: The mosquito or more accurately mosquito borne diseases, have killed roughly half of all human beings that have ever lived across our relatively brief human existence.

DM: More than just pesky bloodsuckers that you've been slapping and cursing at all summer. Historian Timothy Winegard makes the case that mosquitoes are humanity's deadliest predator. He'll join us in a half an hour to explain why we're at war with the mosquito. Then.

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VOICE: I'm here because I'm working with a family in Canada and they've been looking for their sibling, a young girl named Cleo.

DM: The search for a missing Cree girl from Saskatchewan has led Connie Walker and her team to this doorstep in New Jersey. We've got the next instalment of the award-winning CBC original podcast, Finding Cleo. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Conspiracy theories over Jeffrey Epstein's death will always move faster than evidence: expert

Guest: Anna North, Preston Bost

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VOICE 1: We are back with a Fox News alert. Brand new details this morning surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide.

VOICE 2: The autopsy reportedly showing broken bones in his neck raising more questions about his final cause of death.

VOICE 3: And now questions into his suicide growing. ABC News learning it's unlikely there's surveillance video showing the moment he died.

VOICE 4: Within hours of Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide, President Trump was retweeting a conspiracy theory linking Bill Clinton to his death. It was immediately picked up by Russian state media going viral.

DM: The conspiracy theories started almost immediately after Jeffrey Epstein died. The wealthy financier and convicted sex offender was facing multiple charges of sex trafficking when he was found dead in his jail cell of an apparent suicide. But now a new autopsy report showing broken bones in his neck is raising even more questions. Fingers have been pointed at former President Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, even though there's no evidence that either of them or anyone else for that matter were involved in the death. Today we're looking at why the Epstein case is such fertile ground for conspiracies and why so many are so quick to believe them. Anna north is a senior reporter with Vox and she's been covering Epstein's case extensively. She's in New York. Hello.

ANNA NORTH: Hi. Thanks for having me.

DM: Anna, for those who may not have been following this case, who was Jeffrey Epstein?

ANNA NORTH: So Jeffrey Epstein was a money manager. He was very well connected to a number of wealthy and famous people in the United States and he was also accused of sexually abusing dozens of girls and women over the course of his life at his mansions in Florida and New York. He actually served some time in jail beginning in around 2008 for this, but it was a very light jail sentence compared with what he was accused of. And he was then rearrested earlier this year and charged with sex trafficking in New York. He was awaiting trial, but earlier this week he was found dead in his jail cell of an apparent suicide.

DM: Jeffrey Epstein was someone who hung out with politicians, celebrities, even royalty. Who were some of his famous and powerful friends?

ANNA NORTH: Yeah I mean probably the biggest names that he was connected with in the course of his life were Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. In the case of Clinton, he said to have visited the Clinton White House several times. He also travelled with Bill Clinton on Epstein's private jet. They did trips to Africa and other places together. In the case of President Trump, you know Trump has sort of distanced himself from Epstein in recent months not oddly, but the two you know they were photographed together. They appeared at a party together. There's video footage of the two of them kind of laughing together and it seems talking about women. And as recently as 2002, Trump was giving interviews where he praised Jeffrey Epstein, talking about how he was a great guy and even alluding to the fact that he seemed to like very young women.

DM: Now you mentioned those charges in this past July of sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking. Can you break those down a little bit more? What was he charged with exactly?

ANNA NORTH: That's right. So essentially scrutiny had really grown in this case, ever since last year when our reporter Julie K. Brown of The Miami Herald did a big exposé on what Epstein has been accused of over the years and the very light punishment he'd received. So Brown spoke with a number of women who say that they were sexually abused by Epstein when they were girls. That he somehow he convinced them or had others convinced them to come to his home for massages during which she would sexually abuse sometimes raping them and that he would actually send them out to recruit other girls for the same treatment. And he really didn't, he never actually served any prison time for this though he was indicted. This caused a lot of outrage and so actually in July, the Southern District of New York was able to arrest him and charge him with sex trafficking in minors, which is a crime that has to do with engaging a minor in commercial sex act. In this case i's a little unclear why the trafficking charges were chosen specifically, but it may have to do with the fact that Epstein offered money or other kinds of compensation to the woman he's accused of abusing.

DM: And importantly didn't serve prison time because of a non-prosecution agreement, right. So then in July he was charged again and held in a Manhattan jail. What happened next?

ANNA NORTH: That's right. So he was charged again and he was, there was a lot of speculation that perhaps this time he could really face a much more serious punishment. He was facing up to 45 years in prison for these charges. And earlier this summer he actually suffered an injury in jail. There was some speculation at the time that could have been a suicide attempt and so the jail actually placed him on suicide watch, but then he was removed from a suicide watch, apparently at the request of his attorneys. And then earlier this week he was found dead, early on Saturday in his cell, apparently of hanging. Obviously the autopsy report has come in recently with some new details and it's still being investigated, but overall what authorities have said is that it's an apparent suicide.

DM: How will that autopsy report add to the questions surrounding his death?

ANNA NORTH: Yes. So details from the report have sort of been emerging in recent days, although I believe that the sort of the final determination of cause of death is still pending. But one detail that was reported by The Washington Post this week is that Epstein had a broken bone in his neck that while it can happen with suicide is more common with homicide by strangulation. So this has added to speculation around you know how did Epstein really die.

DM: What are some of the conspiracy theories that been gathering steam since he died?

ANNA NORTH: Yes. So I mean I think the interesting thing here to note first of all is that there are these legitimate questions like we talked about. You know we don't know, we don't exactly know yet how Epstein died. And certainly there were some violations of jail protocol. So he wasn't checked on and he wasn't placed with a cellmate, both of which form or a prisoner in his situation, who had been injured in this possible suicide attempt in the past, should have by jail protocol been done. So there's legitimate reasons for people to ask questions. At the same time there are some theories that don't really have any any evidence for them. So far the biggest ones are the idea that either President Trump or Bill Clinton or the Clinton family somehow had Epstein killed. These have been really popular conspiracy theories. They're spreading on social media. You know opposing political camps have been promulgating them and President Trump has even been promulgating the theory that the Clintons somehow are behind this and there's really no evidence for either of those theories.

DM: Interesting that the conspiracies are coming not from one particular side of the political spectrum, but the left and the right.

ANNA NORTH: That's right. I mean the fact that Epstein was connected to so many wealthy and powerful people, including you know two of the most powerful families in the country and families that are on opposing political sides is really one of the things that makes this case so ripe for some of these conspiracy theories in the first place.

DM: What about his victims? I mean what recourse do these women have now that he's dead?

ANNA NORTH: Yeah, so it's important to know that even though Epstein is dead and they won't be able to face him in court, which has been really devastating for some of the survivors, there is still legal recourse for them. In fact one of the women who says she was abused by Epstein has actually already filed a civil suit and she has sued Epstein's estate. So she's seeking to get damages from the potentially multimillion dollar estate that he left behind. She's also sued Ghislaine Maxwell who is allegedly a longtime friend of Epstein, who other others have accused of of helping him in his abuse and she sued three employees of Epstein. So really what she's arguing in this suit is look you know this man did this to me, but there were lots of people who aided and abetted him and she wants them to see justice too.

DM: Some of the victims will be continuing with lawsuits I imagine, I mean, but I wonder does what happened to these women risk being minimized or even forgotten because of all the conspiracy theories that are coming out around his case.

ANNA NORTH: Well I do think it's important in all this, you know as as we try to answer these legitimate questions about his death to listen to the words of the survivors and the woman who've spoken out, you know without whom perhaps none of this would have come to light. And it's also important to know that you know, as I mentioned, they continue to have legal recourse. It's actually the woman who filed suit this week actually was able to do so under the Child Victims Act, which is a new law that just passed in New York and it lengthens the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, allowing people to bring a civil action up to the age of 55 if they were abused as children. That applies to anyone in New York. And so in some ways I think you know the notoriety on this case can raise awareness for other survivors of abuse by other people to know that that now they have more time if they want to bring actions to.

DM: Anna North what are the questions you want answered most about this case right now?

ANNA NORTH: You know I think one of the biggest remaining questions is who looked the other way? You know many people I've talked about this case have said, look this abuse was not a secret. Epstein didn't cover his tracks. And so who are the people who abetted him? Why was he able to allegedly continue this behaviour for so long? And what can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again?

DM: Thank you for bringing us up to speed on this.

ANNA NORTH: Thanks so much.

DM: Anna north is a senior reporter with Vox. She's in New York City. Later.

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Sounds from footage of Lee Harvey Oswald being shot.

That was NBC on November 24th, 1963, broadcasting live the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. He's the man who a U.S. commission would conclude assassinated President John F. Kennedy. For 56 years what happened in Dallas has generated a cottage industry of conspiracy theories. Some say the death of Jeffrey Epstein could be this generation's great conspiracy theory generator. To help us understand why our brains are so primed to accept these stories I'm joined by Preston Bost. He's a professor of psychology at Wabash College and joins me from Crawfordsville, Indiana. Hello.

PRESTON BOST: Good morning Duncan. Happy to join you today.

DM: Glad you could be with us. Were you surprised at all at how fast the conspiracy theories popped up online after the death of Jeffrey Epstein?

PRESTON BOST: You know I hope all your questions are this easy. You know the short answer is no. I think you know the cocktail of of of ingredients present here was a virtual guarantee that they would they would emerge right. You have a notorious figure with a sort of a shadowy past and connections to the halls of power. So I think the emergence of conspiracy theories in this case is probably as inevitable as death itself.

DM: How much does social media play into it? I mean what was it about the death of Jeffrey Epstein that that inspired so many to take to social media?

PRESTON BOST: So two things. I think social media moves quickly, right. I mean the emergence of conspiracy theories here was unsurprising, even though that the speed of them was really breathtaking to me, but what happens is that evidence moves slowly and chatter moves really quickly. Right? So if resolving a case like this involves things like the rules of evidence and forensic work, which takes a lot longer than a five minute montage on a crime procedural, right. And in the meantime the human mind is churning away on the natural questions, right. The top of the segment had a quote from Rudy Giuliani about motive. Right? And while we're waiting for sometimes complicated evidence to emerge during the investigation ,it's very easy to think about who did what to whom and why. Right? It's very easy for the human mind to ask the questions of well who might have had a reason to do away with this man and how might they have profited by it?

DM: We played a clip of Lee Harvey Oswald Oswald getting shot. Do you see any similarities between the theories around the death of Jeffrey Epstein and the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald?

PRESTON BOST: Sure. I mean I think conspiracy theories have plenty of commonalities generally. As to whether this will be our generation's version of the JFK conspiracy, I'll let the historians decide that another 25 years or so. But I notice that the JFK conspiracy and now the Epstein conspiracy are really families of conspiracies. Right? There's not one version of the assassination conspiracy. Depending on who you ask, the assassin assassination of JFK might have been coordinated by the CIA or Cuban exiles or oil barons or the mafia. I count now at least four different versions of the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theory. Right? The most prominent ones of course being that somehow either the Clintons or Donald Trump had him eliminated, but of course there's some suspicion directed also at the British royals and also of course the idea that he might not be dead at all. Right? What you see here is that the conspiracy theories that we choose to believe are hooked into our particular concerns associated with our group membership. Right? So the people who believe that perhaps Donald Trump might have eliminated Jeffrey Epstein are not the same people who believe that the Clintons might have eliminated them. They're very different in most ways and their conspiracy beliefs are directed at their particular group membership and concerns. So the theories are very similar in that way.

DM: As a member of the media I can't help but wonder about how much the media has a role to play in this. I want to play a clip for you. Peter Laufer teaches journalism at the University of Oregon. He's the author of Slow News: A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer.

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VOICE: We don't need to know immediately everything that's going on, especially when so much of that is wrong. The first time around the Epstein case is a perfect example of practicing slow news. Unless you were a victim of Epstein or his lawyer, you simply do not need to know this stuff right away. You probably don't need to know it at all, but if you think it'll help you with your curriculum of knowledge of society then come back to it in a month or two when it's been sorted somewhat.

DM: Preston Bost, I mean if the media have reported only what they knew as 100 percent fact with no speculation at all, would not have stopped or slowed down some of the conspiracy theories?

PRESTON BOST: I'm going to let the media off the hook here a little bit. I think certainly the media act as an, can act as an accelerant for the spread of conspiracy theories just because information can spread so much more quickly now than it could several decades ago, but quite honestly, I think that the human mind being what it is, simply reporting the fact of his death was a sufficient condition for many, many people to leap to the conclusion that his death was not a suicide, but rather a murder. It's just so natural for the human mind to speed forward with a story that explains the event, regardless of whether the media attempt to fill in those blanks or not.

DM: We're getting very familiar with the incredible amount of conspiracy theories that are out there, not just on this case but many others. So what can institutions do, whether it's media or government, to try to to combat conspiracy theories?

PRESTON BOST: Really good question and this is one where my colleagues and I are really struggling right now.

DM: I was hoping you'd have an answer.

p: Well I've got a two part answer that may or may not be satisfying. One is that we need to remember that the social media platforms that carry conspiracy theories also carry just as efficiently the mockery of conspiracy theorists. And if I understand anything about conspiracy beliefs is that they they emanate mostly from people in groups who feel like they're under threat right. That there is some risk to their existence or to their standing. And a media environment in which they are further under attack, a full frontal assault on the conspiracy theorists really isn't going to change things at all. That will simply increase the feeling of threat and the entrenchment in the beliefs. The other thing I do believe is that we can anticipate some of the potentially negative after effects or outcomes from conspiracy beliefs and consider how we can get ahead of those, right. I think in the United States now we're seeing some progress on the vaccinations front, which is an issue that's been infected by conspiracy beliefs as well. The allegation that the medical community, particularly big pharma is somehow contriving to suppress the negative effects of vaccines. But we're seeing that those who know the science are able to exert influence on legislation right. We're not, without necessarily changing the minds directly or arguing with those who believe the conspiracy theories, you can do a little bit of inoculation work and work on those who have influence over policy.

DM: Yeah. Good point with inoculation for sure. Thank you very much for your analysis on this.

PRESTON BOST: Absolutely. Happy to help.

DM: Preston Bost is a professor of psychology at Wabash College. He was in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The CBC News is next. Then if you had to choose the most deadly predator to humans, would it be bears, lions, other humans? You'd be wrong. It's the tiny insect we all love to hate in the summer. More about the vicious mosquito, coming up after the news. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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From the fall of Rome to gin and tonic: How the mosquito 'shaped our history'

Guest: Timothy Winegard

DM: Hi. I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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DM: Still to come, more from the CBC original podcast, Finding Cleo. Reporter Connie Walker's investigation into the disappearance of a Saskatchewan girl takes her to the doorstep of a woman who may have all the information the family is looking for. But first, the pest that can drive campers crazy.

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[Sound of mosquitoes]

DM: Does that very sound starchy scratching or if you're desperately swatting around your ears wondering where the mosquito is going to strike. I feel like running into the tent right now. Across this country that annoying sound has the power to make a torment of a summer vacation, but the battle with the tiny insect is nothing new and it's not just a pest. The mosquito has been deadly to humans throughout history. Timothy Winegard looks at how the mosquito has changed the world in his new book, The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. He's an assistant professor of history at Colorado Mesa University. He's also a Canadian who was a military officer with the Canadian and British forces. We reached him in Grand Junction, Colorado. Hello.

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Hello. Thanks for having me.

DM: Thanks for joining us. Our deadliest predator. Why do you describe the mosquito that way?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well the mosquito has essentially shadowed our human evolution and certainly our existence as homosapiens and it's been far and away the deadliest creature to human beings across our existence. In my research I kept coming across statistical extrapolation and estimates that say the mosquito or more accurately mosquito borne diseases have killed roughly half of all human beings that have ever lived across our relatively brief human existence.

DM: So not, we shouldn't be worried about sharks and bears, we should be worried about mosquitoes.

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Indeed. On average sharks kill about 10 people a year. In the last 20 years mosquitoes are upwards of almost 2 million a year. By far and away, the deadliest animal to humans, including other humans, which come in somewhere around 530,000 people a year. So the mosquito is far and away our deadliest hunter and she has been across our existence, in that you know cataclysmic disease suffering and death has shaped our history far more than we appreciate.

DM: For Canadians who are out trying to enjoy their summer, who are battling the annoyance of that buzz that's just constantly around us when we're out enjoying the outdoors. Let's just get a little bit into the mosquito facts. I mean why are they after our blood?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well the first thing I should say is that mosquitoes by themselves, untethered from one of the numerous pathogens are harmless. It's the diseases that the mosquito transmits that cause so much suffering, misery and death. Only the females bite. The females simply need blood to grow and mature their eggs. So they bite females in a zoological Noah's ark of other animals, not just humans. They go after all sorts of different animals, birds, horses, dogs. Canine heartworm for example is caused by the mosquito. So it's simply a hardwired need for procreation and the survival of the species as far as the female is concerned.

DM: Are there certain things that that attract mosquitoes?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Unfortunately roughly 85 percent of what makes a person attractive or less attractive to mosquitoes is pre-hardwired in their genetic circuit board. So for example blood type O is her vintage of choice, over types A and B or their blend. The amount of chemicals and bacteria in an on a person's skin including lactic acid and the amount of CO2 that's naturally discharged by a person is an aphrodisiac, especially the CO2. Stinky feet, the bacteria on our feet are a mosquito aphrodisiac. So it just depends on the genetic makeup. Now there's some external factors that do influence whether or not you would get bitten more or less, but they're relatively minor compared to those genetic chemicals and blood type. So for example bright colours attract mosquitoes, perfumes and applied fragrances and also we don't know why this is the case and some of your listeners may not enjoy this fact, but beer drinkers also attract mosquitoes.

DM: Beer drinkers. Why?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: We don't know it's a mystery, but the research is showing that beer drinkers attract mosquitoes.

DM: But boy they sure can eat though. I mean you describe the impact of a mosquito in the Arctic for example.

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Yeah the mosquito swarms in the Arctic can literally and they do bleed young caribou to death at a bite rate of roughly 9000 per minute. Now putting that in the equivalent in a human context, that would drain half the blood of an adult humanin about two hours.

DM: Literally drain a young caribou?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Yeah. And unfortunately when the caribou like like humans are trying to flee the onslaught of these mosquito swarms and from the research the mosquito swarms in the Arctic are getting worse, they spend less time eating and socializing and what I mean by socializing is breeding of course and so we're seeing a decline in the populations in certain regions.

DM: Let's get back to the history. I mean you say that we're at war with the mosquito and so much of that is because of disease. Besides malaria, what other diseases are spread by mosquitoes?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well we can separate the diseases or pathogens, if you will, into three categories. Malaria is by far the most deadly and has been the scourge of humankind throughout our existence. That's a parasite. In the worm category, there's filariasis, which causes the grotesque engorgement of limbs. Some of you might have seen pictures, like genitals the size of beach balls, big beach balls literally and it's horrific. That's caused by a worm. Now there is medication for that, a quick fix actually, but unfortunately 120 million people annually contract filariasis still. And then the virus catalogue is the biggest one and that's yellow fever, dengue West Nile, Zika and so and a whole host of others that come along with that virus class.

DM: You mention malaria is the big one there. For a long time people didn't know how it was spread. What kind of theories were there?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well the prevailing theory really up until the late 1800s, which is the what they call from the Hippocratic tradition of medicine, the ancient Greek, father of Western medicine if you will and carried forward literally right up until the 1850s with the evolution of the germ theory by Louis Pasteur, Robert Cock, Joseph Lister and a host of others was myasthma. That diseases including mosquito borne diseases were caused by noxious particles in emissions and toxic air emanating from standing water and swamp lands and marshes.

DM: That was from the air.

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Right. They were tantalizingly close to actually fingering the mosquito that lived and bred in these marshes and swamp lands, but they didn't actually point the finger directly at the mosquito.

DM: So as they started to figure out that it was coming from the mosquitoes, wwhat kind of remedies were tried for for malaria, but before the discovery of quinine?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well quinine was the first that we know of anti-malarial that actually work. So in ancient Egypt they would bathe in fresh human urine. So thankfully we don't have to do that anymore. And in ancient Rome, which was was surrounded by endemic malaria, one of the they prayed to the fever goddess on the hilltop shrines around Rome. But one of the remedies was to wear an amulet or a piece of papyrus around your neck inscribed with the word abracadabra, which was essentially summoning a cure.

DM: We talked about quinine. What exactly do mosquitoes have to do with a gin and tonic?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well quinine is from a tree that grows originally up in the Andes mountains in South America. It's interesting because there was no malaria in the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus in successive waves of European colonizers and explorers and African slaves unfortunately. So it's a new world treatment if you will for an old world disease and a very old disease back to our hominid ancestral evolution. So quinine, they don't know that mosquitoes are causing malaria, but they realize that quinine does work. It's the first anti-malaria that actually has some effect. So in India when the British colonized India with very small numbers actually, they need to take their powdered rations of quinine to try to prevent or treat malaria. Now quinine is very bitter. So they mixed quinine with tonic water, which you still see Canada Dry tonic water can contains quinine and then they added gin to cut the bitter taste and I'm guessing certainly for its intoxicating effect as well and the gin and tonic was born in India.

DM: Now I've got an excuse for sipping gin and tonic on the porch. So much of the history of the mosquito that you trace has to do with with wars and empires that are risen and fallen. One city that benefited and then later got undermined by malaria was Rome. Can you tell me a little bit about the mosquito in Rome and malaria?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Yeah. Rome is kind of a double-edged sword. Rome essentially shakes hands with the devil and it's felt the impact. At first it's a benefit and then ultimately it helps bring down the Roman Empire, specifically malaria. So outside of Rome there's something to the east and then heading south towards Anzio. There's 310 square miles. What they refer to as the Pontine marshes throughout history and these were an absolute malarial hotbed. And so armies coming to attack Rome beginning with Hannibal and the Carthaginian and then the Visigoths, Atilla and his Huns and the vandals couldn't essentially either take or hold Rome because of this malarial shield that was built around Rome by the Pontine marshes and these malarias mosquitoes patrolling these Pontine marshes. So at first it was essentially a saviour, but at the same time as endemic malaria and circled Rome and throat Italy not just Rome, Malaria started to suck and bleed Roman vitality whether that be far enough workers for farms and for mines and for the military. So very slowly Malaria started to erode Roman power and was one factor in facilitating the collapse of the Roman Empire.

DM: What about the so-called New World. I mean how did malaria make its way to to the Americas?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well malaria comes in the blood of Columbus and his crews and the early settlers and African slaves and all sorts of explorers because a lot of these original explorers came from malarial hotbeds in Europe. Portugal, Spain, Italy and made pit stops en route to the Americas in Africa, a lot of them as well. We see this with Francis Drake for example and his crews being cut to pieces by malaria. So it comes in the blood and this is actually quite an interesting fact is that old world Anopheles mosquitoes and New World or the Anopheles mosquitoes, which transmit malaria, a certain species, had a distinct evolutionary path for 90 to 95 million years. So the Anopheles mosquitoes in the Americas had never known the malaria parasite, but immediately started spreading it via biting these infected people coming over and then continuing this cyclical contagion of malaria in the Americas. It's actually quite fascinating. And Yellow Fever, which was another paramount killer, especially in the colonial tropics with these plantation system and plantation colonies and even into the southern United States and up the eastern seaboard of the U.S. It came over two ways in the blood of African slaves and also 80s mosquitoes, which transmit yellow fever also hitched a ride on board the slave ships and then found a comfortable home in the Americas.

DM: Well you say that the mosquito actively dictated the settlement patterns in the Americas. What kind of toll did mosquito borne diseases have on the Indigenous communities here in North America?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well that's a lot of my other books deal with global aspects of Indigenous peoples including those in the Americas and obviously United States and Canada as well. And it's not a secret in the research or that Indigenous peoples across the Americas didn't know disease and had no immunity to these European diseases that came over. And it's not just malaria, yellow fever, it's smallpox, tuberculosis, influenza, measles and upwards of 95 percent they think of the Indigenous populations of the Americas were dead within 200 years of Columbus. That's absolutely shocking. Now in plain numbers that's roughly 95 million out of the estimated 100 million Indigenous peoples that occupied all of the Americas. So what happens is at first Europeans are trying to use Indigenous peoples as slave labour, but their numbers just dwindle because of these diseases, which includes malaria and yellow fever and they need to find a replacement. So originally European indentured servants are then used, but European indentured servants who haven't been seasoned to malaria in their homelands or don't have acquired immunity to yellow fever, which is a virus. So if you get yellow fever, you're essentially immune from getting in again, if you survive. So European indentured servants were dying in droves in the tropical furnace of mosquito borne disease on these plantations including the southern United States or the southern colonies originally. So a replacement was needed and unfortunately because Africans had acquired immunity to yellow fever in Africa and also many of them possessed these malarial genetic shields, whether that be sickle cell, duffy antigen negative thalassaemia and others, they were seen as a viable replacement simply because they survived longer and were more profitable to work on the European plantations in the Caribbean, Central America and the southern United States.

DM: Ottawa paid a high price from malaria. What happened?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well whether it's the Rideau Canal, the Panama Canal or any other canal, when you start digging trenches and put men in close proximity and then add water, essentially it's a recipe for disaster because mosquitoes breed in water. So in a forgotten footnote of Canadian history, when the Rideau Canalwas built in the late 1820 and early 19th or 1830s, excuse me. Malaria goes on a rampage in upwards of a thousand workers die of disease, including 600 from malaria. And also they estimate that another 250 civilians in the canal zone died of malaria as well. John Redpath who was the chief engineer of the Rideau Canal mentions this in his own correspondences and thankfully even he contracts malaria a couple of times and he survives to go on to create Canada's largest sugar company Redpath sugar, which is still I believe the downtown port of Toronto, you see the big Redpath sugar building.

DM: And again you do something remarkable here. I mean you trace how the mosquito was involved in early Canadian military history. So how did the the mosquito help the British defeat the French at the Plains of Abraham?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Well the Seven Years War was a global war. It was fought in India and in Europe, the Far East, in the Caribbean and as well as the North American theatre, which is the important area of operation certainly for Canada. So the French Caribbean colonies Haiti, Martinique, Guadalupe are more economically valuable than the fish for portfolios of New France or Quebec. So they are protecting or trying to protect their Caribbean sugar and coffee colonies primarily over the do over New France or Quebec. So they're pouring troops into their Caribbean colonies and within six months half of these troops die from yellow fever and malaria. So the French start siphoning man munitions weapons and money away from the defence of Quebec to replace or reinforce these more lucrative Caribbean colonies leaving Quebec extremely vulnerable undermanned and leaving more calm with really he can't have a meaningful defence of Quebec. Now on the other hand securing the northern flank of the American 13 colonies is primary to Britain. So Jennifer Wolfe obviously takes a defeats Malcolm or defeats the French at the Battle of Plains of Abraham in 1759 leading to British annexation of New France or Quebec or Canada. And that is essentially caused by Caribbean mosquitoes absolutely shredding French troops and siphoning away you know munitions man and everything reinforcements from Quebec, leaving it vulnerable.

DM: I'm just imagining so many soldiers you know who who are finding themselves in these incredible conditions fighting mosquitoes. On top of everything else you've got your own family history though with mosquitoes. Can you tell us that story?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Yeah my my great grandfather William he he joined the Canadian army in 1915 at the age of 15 to fight in the First World War. And he was gassed and shot in March 1916 just outside Yeap. And when he went to the hospital he was sent home for being under age I was from calling Ontario. He he docked at Montreal. He didn't get home to Collingwood he immediately joined the Canadian Navy at the age of 16 and then served the rest of the war off a minesweeper off the coast of West Central Africa which is the ancestral birthplace of malaria. And in 1918 at the close of the war he contracted malaria a sorry typhoid and influenza all at the same time and he was about five or ten one hundred and seventy five eighty pounds and he way to skeletal. Ninety seven pounds and they were ready to chuck him overboard. Wow. And one of his crewmates Sam Blanc and he spent a year in hospital in Sierra Leone and then a year in hospital after that in England and so his repatriation was delayed by two years because of this malarial and other sicknesses. So in 1920 he he finally got on a boat to go home and he saw a teenage girl getting seasick over the railing of the ship and being a bit of a you know joker he cast a few flirting snide remarks her way. And as my great grandmother later told me she turned around and gave him gave him a tongue lashing. And the quarrelling lovers were married for over 60 years and I'm here thankfully because of the.

DM: Well there's a nice outcome at least with all this death and destruction that you've been describing for us. We've tried so many things to try to get rid of the mosquitoes, humankind over over years and years and years. You know we talked about quinine. You write about the bay for example covering themselves in red ochre and that was the kind of the first experience of settlers when they arrived on the shores here. How about new biological technologies? How have they changed the war against the mosquito?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Of the roughly 3500 mosquito species the majority do not vector or transmit diseases. It's specific species, which brings us to where I think we're headed in this answer is to the new CRISPR gene editing technology. There's two avenues to CRISPR gene editing technology so since CRISPR has been unveiled in 2012 it's been a media sensation and made a media media buzz and rightfully so it's a futuristic unbelievable technology. Essentially we're able to intrude on natural selection by cutting and pasting genes of DNA at will so we can take out a piece of DNA and replace it with a desired one in any animal not just mosquitoes by human beings for that matter and they're certainly CRISPR research being done on humans across the planet. There was a recent example in China where a man scientists Chris Bird two girls the CRISPR twins to make them immune from HIV and may have altered their IQ as well. So Jurassic Park essentially could be very real very shortly. So from from a mosquito point, oih I need to say too, the mosquito depicted in Jurassic Park in the amber is one of the very few mosquito species that don't bite.

DM: Good to clarify that.

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Yeah. So you know there'd be no blood in that mosquito. It's one of the bigger ones and more beautiful ones. That's why they picked that one, although they're factually incorrect. So from a CRISPR point of view, there's two avenues. One is to CRISPR mosquitoes is the specific mosquito species to essentially make their generations after or their they're young either infertile all male or stillborn, thereby potentially eradicating that mosquito species. The other avenue of CRISPR is to CRISPR mosquitoes with a selfish gene or a gene drive that would be inherited by their bloodlines and offspring. And what this would do it simply would make that mosquito species harmless by making it incapable of transmitting the specific mosquito borne disease thereby bringing down that mosquito borne disease without bringing down that mosquito species.

DM: Well lots to debate there about the ethics and the biology of that. In the meantime, what's your your repellent of choice, Timothy Winegard?

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: I, some of your listeners are not going to like this either, but I don't really get, they don't like me very much. So for example I could be standing beside my sister and for every you know she'd have 100 mosquito bites, I might have one. I'm Blood type B, so I'm not blood type O and maybe they don't like my stinking stench and natural body odour, I don't know, but I am not a mosquito magnet, certainly.

DM: Well thank you for this fascinating look at the mosquito and human history. I appreciate it.

TIMOTHY WINEGARD: Of course. Thank you very much.

DM: Timothy Winegard is assistant professor of history at Colorado Mesa University. He's the author of The Mosquito: A Human History of our Deadliest Predator and we reached him in Grand Junction, Colorado. Well we want to know if you have stories about your encounters with the mighty mosquito. Tell us your best tips for swatting away, keeping them at bay. Tweet us we're @TheCurrentCBC or you can hit me up I'm @DuncanMcCue. Coming up in our next half hour, the CBC original podcast, Finding Cleo continues. Today answers start to emerge about what happened to a young Cleo, but for siblings who've been searching for years, the news isn't always easy to hear.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: How come you're hte one telling me this?

VOICE 2: He hung up.

VOICE 3: He hung up?

VOICE 2: Mhmm.

DM: Episode 5 of Finding Cleo, Afraid of the Dark, is coming up in two minutes. I'm Duncan McCue. You're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo - Episode 5

DM: I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. This week we've been hearing the story of Cleo, the young Cree girl from Saskatchewan who went missing in the 1970s. Her siblings have spent decades trying to find out what happened to her. They thought she'd died trying to hitchhike back home from Arkansas. In today's episode, host Connie Walker tells Cleo's brother Johnny about some startling new information she's uncovered.

SOUNDCLIP

[phone ringing]

Connie: Hey, is this Johnny?

Connie: Hey Johnny, it's Connie calling from CBC.

Johnny: Hey! How are you doing?

Johnny: Good, good.

Johnny: Oh, working at the moment.

Connie: Okay, well, actually we're kind of nearby, actually about a couple of hours away. We were wondering if we could come and meet you. We've been looking into some things here and we'd like to just kind of give you an update in person.

Johnny: Uh huh.

Connie: Johnny says he can talk to us after he finishes work. So we get in our rental car and head west to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Connie: No we're good, we're good. Yeah, thanks very much.

Danielle: Do you want anything, Chief?

Johnny: No, I'm good. Maybe water.

Johnny: Oh yeah? That's good.

Johnny: Oh, yeah?

Johnny: Is it? Oh yeah. Wow.

Connie: She was adopted into a family in Marlton, New Jersey.

Connie: Yeah. Do you think that you had the dates wrong, maybe?

Connie: I’m not sure if he believes we’ve actually found her, so I show him the photos that Jill and Gina gave us.

Johnny: Yeah.

Connie: Yeah, yeah, her smile. Her hair. Yeah, that'd be her. Where was this from? In Saskatchewan?

Johnny: Oh really? Oh, wow.

Johnny: Yeah. Did they say where?

Johnny: Yeah. It's better than not knowing nothing. That's awesome. I'm glad you guys found out more than I would know.

Johnny: You'd think I'd be more emotional. But I'm not because it's like, after all these years. It's good to know. But...So that's her adoptive name, huh?

Johnny: Wow. That's where she's buried and stuff?

Johnny: Marlton. That's not too far across from Philly, there, is it? Yeah, the smile looks familiar and the eyes, and stuff.

Johnny: Yes, especially this one here.

Connie: That's the one thing they wanted to make sure that you guys knew about her was that she-- she smiled a lot and she seemed happy.

Connie: But she refused to tell us how she died. She said, I don't want to tell you, it's not…

Connie: I think they'd be really actually excited to talk to you guys, to tell you about Cleo.

Connie: Yeah, I'm sure it's a lot to take in.

Connie: No, we just found out.. We really just confirmed last night in New Jersey.

Connie: It’s getting late. We agree that we will try to call Christine, April, and Mark in the morning. We say goodnight to Johnny, who still seems to be processing this news.

Connie: I'm glad, I'm glad you feel relieved. I'm glad.

[soft, solemn music]

Connie: Later, he posts another photo of Cleo. The black and white one from the yearbook taken just a few months before she died. When he writes, Johnny’s real reaction comes out. Expressing all of his emotions about finding Cleo. All of the things he couldn’t say to us in person.

Christine: Well, first of all, I'm happy to know that she's... to know where she is, because all this time, I've never known where she is at all.

Christine: It’s again, that feeling of, I have the piece of my life back from what people tell me. We just trusted people who told us things, right.

Connie: They refused to talk about it. They said that we have to find out on our own and that we need to try to find her death certificate. But they would not talk about it at all.

Connie: So we'll just have to try to reach Mark another time because we can't get in touch with him. But now April and Christine are both on the line here.

April: How are you?

April: Doing pretty good, thanks.

April: What’s up?

April: Oh my God, where?!

April: Oh my god, that's great!

April: Yeah.

Christine: Are you okay?

Connie: We tell them we’re trying to get information from police in Marlton and that we’ve been trying to reach Cleo’s adoptive mother, Mrs. Lee Madonia, on the phone.

Christine: Yeah. I want to know, too.

Connie: Yeah. December 22nd, 1978.

April: Yeah. Wow.

April: Thank you, ladies, for doing all the hard work for us. And Chris, thank you for starting this process. We would have never found out if it wasn't for you, Chris.

April: Yeah, me too.

Connie: Can we ask you guys to let Mark know, or to get in touch with Mark?

April: Well, I hate to say this, guys, but I have to let you go, I need time to process this all.

April: Yeah and Chris, I'll call you sometime, okay?

Christine: All right, [voice cracking] I'll be around.

April: Okay, love you.

April: Okay, bye.

Christine: Oh good. I’m good. I’ll be fine.

Christine: My intuition tells me that she was not supposed to be taken from this world. I don't think it was anything medical. I think it was something beyond her control and that she didn't want to die. That's the sense that I get. But I don't think she was meant to be gone from this world. Something happened.

Christine: I had this dream of being on the banks of the Saskatchewan River but on the top, right? So I remember it was summer, and it was nice and green, it was windy, and I could hear the water. Then I see this house that had no windows. It had a door but it had no windows. It was a really weird house. And I remember thinking, why doesn't that house have windows? Then I see somebody running through the fields towards me, and it was Cleo, but she was younger. She was about, I don't know, four or five? She had a very full face and she looked very young. So she was running towards me and she was happy. And then in the background, I saw an older woman. [emotional] And that older woman, I think, was my grandmother because I've seen her wearing a blue dress and an apron, and she was coming out of the house. So I think my grandmother wants me to bring her back. So that's all I saw, was Cleo being happy, and the sense that Cleo’s happiest times of her life were on the reserve where she was staying with my grandmother. I don't know how I know that, that's what they showed me in my dream, so I don't know if any of that's true. But, in my dream, she was staying with my grandmother and she was very happy and she was on the banks of the Saskatchewan River.

Christine: Yeah. Because like, our lives had been like we'd been dropped from the sky, you know? We were raised by these people who don't look like us. Stand out in every class picture or little newspaper clipping throughout our whole lives, right? We belong somewhere, spiritually we're connected to somewhere. And so I want to be buried in Little Pine because even though I was taken from there doesn't mean that I don't belong there. Because when she came to me...[voice cracks] when Cleo came to me and told me those things, I think that's what she wants. She would have told me if she didn't. I need to know. I need to know. [sniffle]

Connie: We think that her mom is still alive here in New Jersey. She's probably in her 70s. You know. And that she might have a brother here as well. And we want to try to be as careful as we can with Cleo's mom, and so we thought that maybe a phone call first would be the best way to reach out to her.

Voicemail: Hello, please leave us your name and phone number and a message. And we'll call you back.

Connie: I decide not to leave a message and we start on the two-hour drive back to Marlton. We aren’t on the road long when we realize we missed a call on Marnie’s cell.

[phone ringing]

Connie: Hi, is this Mark?

Connie: Hi Mark, it's Connie calling from CBC.

Connie: Sure. Sure. We tried calling you this morning when we were on the phone with Christine and April. Um, But...

Connie: It's Connie.

[pause]

Mark: How come you're the one telling me this?

Marnie: Did he hang up?

Marnie: Oh my goodness.

Connie: We just we just got a call from Mark and we told him that we found Cleo and he was quite upset that he was hearing from us. He's, I guess, a little bit upset, and that I'm sure he'd appreciate a call or something.

Christine: Yeah I tried to call him. I'll give him another call.

Connie: We hope Christine can reach Mark. In the meantime, we keep trying to call Mrs. Madonia.

Marnie: No, 0906.

Voicemail: Hello, please leave us your name and phone number. [hangs up]

Rosenberg: Evesham Police department, Lieutenant Rosenberg, how may I help you?.

Marnie: Oh hi there, it's Marnie Luke calling from CBC News.

Connie: Marnie reminds him why we’re calling and the information we’re hoping to get.

Marnie: So you have been able to locate a file then.

Rosenberg: Yes. I actually have it sitting right, I have it sitting right in front of me.

Marnie: ..is what I'm explaining lining up with what you're seeing in the file or...?.

Marnie: Yeah, and her mother alluded to the fact that she had run away and tried to go back to Saskatchewan.

Marnie: [murmurs in agreement]

Rosenberg: And I'll check. I mean, I'm actually checking upstairs as we speak to see with our clerk's office, there should be a death certificate on file, and I believe that that is a public record. I'm actually checking, I'm checking for that right now.

Rosenberg: I was told that they should have it. There's actually some of the officers that responded investigated are still alive.

Rosenberg: So that may be one avenue that I'm going to potentially explore.

[driving sounds]

Connie: We hit some traffic on the way back to Marlton and I’m starting to get anxious about the time. Marnie and I had talked it over with Heather, our senior producer, and we decide that if we can’t get Mrs. Madonia on the phone then we’ll try reaching her at home. Something I’m dreading doing. How will she react to a reporter just showing up and asking about her daughter who died nearly 40 years ago? I really don’t want to do this, but knocking on her door seems like the best option with such limited time.

Marnie: How are you feeling?

Connie: Marnie and I talk it over some more. We want to be as careful and as sensitive as we possibly can be. I’m still a bit unsure, but I think of Cleo’s siblings, about how much they want to know how she died, and how much I also want to know. We’ve been working on this story for months and we’re at a crucial moment. Her friends won’t tell us, neither will police. Talking to Mrs. Madonia today is our best chance at finding out the truth.

Connie: No, this looks right.

GPS Voice: You have arrived at your destination.

Connie: All right.

Connie: Marnie waits in the car.

Connie: I cross the street, walk up the driveway, and approach the front door.

Connie Walker: Hi, I'm looking for Lee Madonia? Hi Lee. My name is Connie Walker. I know that we've never met. I'm a reporter with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto, Ontario.

Lee: I’m not really feeling well.

Lee: What’s your first name?

Lee Madonia: Right.

Connie Walker: And we think that it might be your daughter.

DM: We've been listening to Finding Cleo, the award-winning CBC original podcast by Connie Walker. Such a powerful story. Let us know what you're thinking as you're listening to it. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC or get in touch with Connie @Connie_Walker. We'll bring you more of Cleo's story next week on the summer edition of The Current. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One because it's music Friday on Q. Guest host and Nana aba Duncan will speak with producer Andy Zacks who's compiled the most complete audio document of the 1969 Woodstock festival ever. That's on Q, coming up right after us. Earlier in the show we were looking at the dark side of the mosquito and the islands that make up Tonga are familiar with the dangers after an outbreak of Zika virus in 2016. Last summer when the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, otherwise known as Harry and Meghan, were visiting the country they were serenaded by a college boys choir. Here they are performing an anti-mosquito song for the royals. I'm Duncan McCue. Thanks for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Choir performance for Duke and Duchess of Sussex in Tonga]

Aug. 16, 2019 episode transcript

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