Distillations podcast
Health & Medicine
Bodies, minds, and the things that help and harm them
The Mothers of Gynecology
Why are Black women in America three times more likely to die during childbirth than White ones?
Correcting Race
A group of medical students wants to take racial bias out of the equation.
‘That Rotten Spot’
When the plague struck San Francisco in 1900, public health officials blamed Chinatown, as if the disease itself had a racial component.
Black Pills
If there’s no such thing as biological race, why would the FDA approve a drug just for Black patients?
Bad Blood, Bad Science
The word “Tuskegee” has become shorthand for the Black community’s mistrust of the medical establishment. But what really happened?
Calamity in Philadelphia
When yellow fever struck the city in 1793, faulty race logic almost destroyed it.
What Causes Alzheimer’s?
Vox’s ‘Unexplainable’ podcast interviews ‘Distillations’ about how Alzheimer’s research has stubbornly focused on a single theory for decades.
Vampire Panic
When an invisible threat plagued rural 19th-century New England, the evidence pointed to the supernatural.
COVID’s Hidden Toll on Nurses
“I just feel broken.”
The Alchemical Origins of Occupational Medicine
From Paracelsus to OSHA.
Interview with Magda Marquet
The biochemical engineer and entrepreneur on her hopes for a better postpandemic society.
Interview with Robert Langer
The MIT chemical engineer and entrepreneur talks about Moderna Therapeutics, a company he helped start, and his work developing a way for vaccines to self-boost in the body.
Interview with Mark Stevenson
The Thermo Fisher Scientific executive tells us what it took for his instrumentation company to design a diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus.
Interview with Katrine Bosley
The longtime biotech executive talks to us about how CRISPR can be used to make a faster diagnostic test for COVID-19 and how she’s advising a hospital in creating a vaccine.
Interview with William Haseltine
The scientist, entrepreneur, and author has lived through three epidemics. He tells us how this pandemic compares with his earlier experiences: “It is a tragedy that never needed to happen.”
Interview with Susan Weiss
The University of Pennsylvania microbiology professor talks about her 40 years of experience researching coronaviruses.
Interview with Sue Desmond-Hellmann
The former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recalls the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the Ebola pandemic: “Early pandemic science is filled with uncertainty.”
Interview with John C. Martin
The former CEO of Gilead Sciences tells us about remdesivir, an older drug showing promise in the fight against COVID-19.