Episode · Stuff You Should Know · 2026-05-26
Books mentioned on The Story of Starvation Heights
There are quacks and then there is Linda Hazzard. Not only did she starve her patients to death, but she took their family fortunes as she did it.
Josh Clark recommended Starvation Heights by Greg Olsen and others, and discussed Fasting for the Cure of Disease by Linda Burfield Hazzard.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Fasting for the Cure of Disease
Discussed“So, um she had her her big big book. I mean, she had 11 of them, but I feel like the one as far as this goes, this most relevant is the one from 1908. It's called Fasting for the Cure of Disease. And that's where she laid out, you know, the program, which is just those three things really.”
Where to get it
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Starvation Heights
Starvation Heights by Greg Olsen is a 1997 true crime book detailing the horrifying history of Linda Burfield Hazzard, a self-proclaimed specialist who used starvation and radical fasting to treat patients at her Washington state sanitarium with fatal results.
Recommended“Yeah, there's a book uh that a lot of this came from uh from 1997. It's called Starvation Heights by a local named Greg Olsen. Uh so shout out to Greg Olsson in that book.”
Where to get it
