Jonas Salk's Miracle Vaccine
Constant Wonder - Season 2022, Episode 623
- Aug 24, 2020 6:00 am
- 52:46 mins
Jonas Salk: Hero and Outcast Guest: Dr. Charlotte Jacobs, Professor, Medicine, Stanford University, and author, "Jonas Salk: A Life" America rejoiced when Jonas Salk's polio vaccine was announce on April 12, 1955. Polio had terrified the nation for decades, and within 25 years the disease was eradicated in the US. The public and press loved Jonas Salk, so why did his colleagues sideline him? Looking for the Spanish Flu in Norwegian Permafrost Guest: Maryn McKenna, science journalist, author, and Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University Researchers went looking for a graveyard in the permafrost of a Norwegian territory in the Arctic Circle. They wanted to study victims of the 1918 Spanish flu and they were in a race to identify the cause of the disease. Here's what they found. We also talk about how the current pandemic may increase antibiotic resistance. McKenna's work on disease takes her into the past and also right into the thick of research on Covid-19.