"Eradicating Smallpox” is a journey to South Asia, the site of the last days of variola major smallpox. Many epidemiologists and global health leaders thought that ending smallpox was impossible. They were wrong. Dedicated public health workers made it happen.

“Eradicating Smallpox” is an eight-episode, limited series amplifying their voices.

Host Céline Gounder, a physician and epidemiologist, traveled to India and Bangladesh, and her field recordings anchor the season. Each episode mines the smallpox-eradication history for lessons relevant to the next public-health emergency. 

New episodes coming this summer. 

In the years leading up to the pandemic, Dr. Celine Gounder, the host of the EPIDEMIC and American Diagnosis podcasts, had the opportunity to care for patients part-time at several Indian Health Service facilities around the United States. Working on the “rez,” one theme came up over and over: resilience.

In this latest season of American Diagnosis, we’re going to share stories of Indigenous people who are taking action to protect the health and wellbeing of their communities in the face of incredible odds and we’ll ask hard questions about why they are confronting so many challenges to their health.

Listen to new episodes of American Diagnosis Season 4: Rezilience starting Jan. 18, 2022. Subscribe to American Diagnosis wherever you get your podcasts. 

"It's a really interesting question: how do we get closure in this pandemic?  I think a lot of people have hurt and loss that's not been acknowledged. I think acknowledging that loss is very important." - Andy Slavitt

In this final episode of season 1 of EPIDEMIC, we look back on the coronavirus pandemic and how we can move forward with one of our first guests, Andy Slavitt, who was President Biden’s Senior Advisor on COVID-19. Then we hear from you, our listeners, about how the vaccine has changed your life for the better. Finally, Celine gives her personal reflections on the pandemic and shares her upcoming podcast projects.

Andy’s book, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response, is out now. And check out Andy Slavitt's podcast, In the Bubble.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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"Pregnant women who have SARS-CoV-2 are more likely to be admitted to the ICU, to need a ventilator  and are more likely to die than women of the same age who are not pregnant. Pregnancy definitely makes getting COVID-19 much more dangerous." -Andrea Edlow

Some of the most persistent myths about coronavirus and the vaccines developed to fight it have to do with women's health. In this episode, we'll hear about the latest science when it comes to topics like COVID and a woman's fertility, breastfeeding, and how vaccines can help a pregnant woman protect her child in the womb. We'll also address the legacy of excluding pregnant women from clinical trials and how that history complicated caring for pregnant and lactating women during the pandemic.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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"The pandemic has given us an opportunity to finally change this and if we don't, the economic impact from the fallout of women in the workforce is going to be devastating." -Erika Moritsugu

The pandemic has upended caregiving and what it means to be a working mom. More than 2 million women have left the workforce because of the cost and effort of caring for children and older family members during the pandemic. In this episode of EPIDEMIC, we’ll hear why the United States is the only wealthy nation not to offer comprehensive support to parents, why caregiving is a critical part of American infrastructure,  and what’s at stake if parents and caregivers are forgotten.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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"When you're building a system like a vaccine passport you're potentially excluding millions of people because they don't have this thing that once was optional, but has now become indispensable." -Albert Fox Cahn

How do you let people who are fully vaccinated get back to normal life without creating super-spreader events for those who haven’t yet been vaccinated? Some are calling for vaccine certification programs that could hopefully re-open large parts of the economy safely while we still work on getting the vast majority vaccinated. In this episode, we’re going to hear about the ethics and logistics of vaccine certificates in the United States and around the world. We'll hear the arguments for and against them, and how the burden of these programs falls unevenly around the world.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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"You can't fight scarcity with scarcity. The only way out of the vaccine problem is by making a lot more of it." -James Krellenstein

India is the world's largest supplier of vaccines but the government there suspended the export of all COVID-19 vaccines after a devastating outbreak this spring. This is just the latest reason why global health leaders are calling for a new, decentralized approach to vaccine manufacturing around the world. In this week’s episode we’ll look at the challenge facing developing nations when it comes to vaccines; how life-saving technology like mRNA vaccines could be rolled out around the world; and why it’ll take a generational investment to make sure the developing world is prepared for the next pandemic.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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"It's a triumph of science and engineering that we now have multiple effective COVID vaccines. We just need to find the political will to invest a bit more money and deploy them around the world." -Chris Morten

President Joe Biden said the United States would be the world's "arsenal of vaccines" but critics say current plans to donate 80 million doses around the world are not enough. Instead, countries like India and South Africa are calling for a waiver on vaccine patents so they can make their own. In this episode we’re going to look at the controversy around patent protections for vaccines during the pandemic and what the U.S. government could do to improve access to vaccines around the world. We'll hear what tools the U.S. government has to pressure companies to share their vaccine tech and learn about some ideas on how the patent system could be re-imagined to ensure life-saving technology is more equitably distributed.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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"They benefit from traffic no matter if it's good information or malignant misinformation. " -Imran Ahmed

During the pandemic, disinformation campaigns have been targeting people of color with lies like African Americans can't get COVID or denying the pandemic is even real. In this episode, we’re going to hear more about how these disinformation networks are gaming social media algorithms. We'll hear how the United States has become a hub for disinformation exported around the world, and what legislators need to do to tackle bad actors.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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"What we really need to be doing is not belittle people. Don't wag your finger at them. Don't make them feel stupid or small for not having gotten the vaccine yet. Talk to them about why it's safe." - Gov. Chris Christie

Conservatives have emerged as the group least likely to say they’ll get vaccinated. Getting more conservative Americans comfortable with the vaccines will be needed to control the pandemic as national vaccination rates have started to slow and new variants spread across the United States. In this episode we’ll look at the results of a focus group attended by Governor Christie and other GOP leaders to listen to these voters’ concerns and see if they could be convinced to get vaccinated.

This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.

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