Ep 77 Legionnaires' Disease: A Killer Mist

This Podcast Will Kill You

Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

Health & Fitness, Science

4.8 • 17.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2021

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Celebration wasn’t the only thing in the air in Philadelphia in July of 1976. Over the course of several days during the 58th Annual Convention of the American Legion, a killer mist spewed out of the air conditioning units throughout the building and into the sidewalks nearby. The result was a large outbreak of unexplained febrile pneumonia, often fatal, that would acquire the name Legionnaires’ Disease. What was causing this terrifying disease and how could it be stopped? In this episode, we walk through the massive investigation into this outbreak that would lead to the discovery of the causative agent, Legionella pneumophila, and explore the biology of this mysterious pathogen. We wrap up the episode with a look at the current status of Legionnaires’ Disease and a potentially grim forecast for its prevalence as the world slowly gets back to normal.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We at Wundry live, breathe, and downright obsess over True Crime.
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0:21.0	It was the end of the month and I was helping a friend paint her home. Her house was about
0:25.8	35 miles away from mine, which is in the city of Boston. So in lieu of driving home, she opted to
0:31.6	get me a room because I was going to be helping her the following day. Once I opened the hotel door,
0:37.1	it was hot and musty and you could tell no one had entered that room for a while.
0:42.2	I turned on the AC and was hit in the face with a musty mist. That smell still lingers with me today.
0:49.9	Didn't think anything of it. Eight food went to sleep, continued with my weekend as scheduled.
0:55.2	Basically, the gym and sleep. That following Monday, I felt out of it. I wasn't sick, just
1:01.7	exhausted. I thought it was simply from going to the gym. I didn't have work because it was
1:06.7	Memorial Day and wasn't due back to work until Wednesday, but I stayed in bed the whole holiday
1:12.5	in the day after. I just remember being at work tired. I thought it was from over-sleeping
1:18.6	and the best cure for that was more sleep. As the weekend rolled around, I was back at my friend's
1:24.2	house painting, but I noticed I needed a break every five to ten minutes or so. I was a bit sore
1:30.2	and always out of breath and sweating profusely. Monday rolled around and it had been nine days since
1:37.2	I was at the hotel. I went to bed and when I awoke, I could no longer walk straight. I was slamming
1:43.6	into walls and couldn't see straight. When I awoke, it was already midnight. I overslept again,
1:48.9	but now I lost all motor skills. Couldn't walk at all and my speech was slurring, so Siri didn't
1:55.2	recognize my voice. I had to crawl to use the restroom and had a hard time not knocking things over
2:00.8	when I did. I awoke in my bed to my mom asking me about the mess in the bathroom. She immediately
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