logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2025
34m 45s

Information Inoculation: Defending Again...

TED
About this episode

In 1952, polio was everywhere: killing or paralyzing roughly half a million people annually. Yet just 10 years later, paralytic polio cases in the US dropped by 96% and we were on track to get rid of polio for good. But in recent years, the virus started striking back. So, what’s behind these recent spikes? Explore the dangers of poliovirus and the possibility of eradicating this deadly disease. [Directed by Anton Bogaty, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by Stephen LaRosa].


After the talk, Shoshana interviews Dr. Grace Lee, a pediatric infectious diseases physician and the former Chair of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, to cover how vaccine decisions get made and the ripple effects it has on communities.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
Your vaccine questions, answered with Kizzmekia Corbett and Kelwalin Dhanasarnsombut
Shoshana shares two talks that address where vaccines come from, how they work, and why some people have become mistrustful of these treatments. First up: immunologist Kizzmekia Corbett answers your questions about how vaccines are developed. Then, researcher Kelwalin Dhanasarnso ... Show More
19m 28s
Oct 29
On Memories (1/5): Can we edit memories? | Amy Milton
Trauma and PTSD rewire your brain -- especially your memory -- and can unearth destructive emotional responses when stirred. Could we eliminate these triggers without erasing the memories themselves? Enter neurologist Amy Milton's mind-blowing, memory-editing clinical research po ... Show More
19m 40s
Oct 29
On Memories (2/5): Where does your sense of self come from? A scientific look | Anil Ananthaswamy
Our memories and bodies give us clues about who we are, but what happens when this guidance shifts? In this mind-bending talk, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy shares how the experiences of "altered selves" -- resulting from schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, foreign limb syndrome or ot ... Show More
16m 39s
Recommended Episodes
Sep 2022
SYMHC Classics: Polio, The Dread Disease
This 2011 episode from prior hosts Sarah and Deblina covers polio, a threat in the early 20th century that often left victims paralyzed or dead. Vaccines caused an immediate drop in polio cases and today have nearly eradicated the disease. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy ... Show More
26m 4s
Jun 2020
Cell Strain
In the 1950s, polio spread throughout the United States. Heartbreakingly, it affected mainly children. Thousands died. Thousands more were paralyzed. Many ended up surviving only in iron lungs, a machine that breathed for polio victims, sometimes for years. Scientists raced to fi ... Show More
45m 39s
Jul 2020
How We Almost Got Rid of Polio
<p>For more than half of the 20th century parents in the industrialized world were freaked out by an unseen waster of youth, the poliovirus. It spread easily and could paralyze children for life or even kill them. Its effects were so horrible that humanity set about ridding if fr ... Show More
45m 34s
Mar 2024
The Tainted Polio Story
For much of human history, polio was absolutely terrifying. People weren't sure how it spread, they had no idea how to treat it, and they realized anyone could be infected. This changed with the emergence of polio vaccination, which was considered, for the most part, a massive su ... Show More
1h 5m
May 2021
Patient zero: Back from the brink
A six-year old boy in Papua New Guinea woke up one day in 2018 and was suddenly unable to stand up. Less than a year later, children in three other Asia Pacific nations were experiencing the same alarming symptoms. A disease that had been thought to have been eradicated from this ... Show More
40m 57s
Dec 2020
A Spoonful of Hope
Nearly 60 years ago, Americans witnessed the roll out of a polio vaccine that would change lives and the way we fight disease. Writer and producer Jeffrey Sherman was a child when he took the vaccine, at the time delivered by sugar cube. It turns out that small act inspired an Am ... Show More
14m 47s
May 2025
Part Two: How We Beat Polio But Not the Mythmaking Around Jonas Salk
Margaret talks with Anney Reese about how a group of people made polio vaccines and ended polio but how one guy took all the credit and ruined our understanding of history.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 
57m 58s