Blythe Terrell

So like that's likely to be a particular group of people, young, healthy, probably predominantly dudes.

Right.

In fact, I mean, there's just so much we don't know about this stuff.

Like, we have some data on how much it takes to kill animals in the lab with these chemicals.

But there's a ton that we don't know about, like, what it does to people, which is actually the main focus of one of the papers that Jennifer and her colleagues ended up writing.

It's about whether tear gas can affect you over the long term.

Because there's this idea that you get tear gassed, it feels terrible, you have these awful symptoms in the moment.

But a few hours later, you know, you like start to feel better, you recover from that stuff.

Right.

But some research is suggesting that, you know, that's not always true.

I mean, for one thing, people get hit with these canisters, leading to injuries, blindness, even death.

And then from the gas, there are reports of ongoing respiratory problems, neurological problems.

And then after these events, people report mental health issues, PTSD.

Sure, yeah.

Which makes sense, right?

Like it's not just the tear gas.

If you're experiencing tear gas, there's probably a lot of other things going on that are going to potentially contribute to mental health issues, right?

But one of the things that caught my eye here is that we're actually starting to see more and more reports of health stuff that, like, you might not expect.

So, for example, researchers did a big survey of people in Portland, Oregon, after the 2020 protests.

I don't know if you remember.