How A 100-Year-Old Treatment Could Help Save Us From Superbugs

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2020

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2015, Steffanie Strathdee's husband nearly died from a superbug, an antibiotic resistant bacteria he contracted in Egypt. Desperate to save him, she reached out to the scientific community for help. What she got back? A 100-year-old treatment that's considered experimental in the U.S. Strathdee, an infectious disease epidemiologist, tells us how it works, its drawbacks, and its potential role in our fight against superbugs. (Encore episode.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Brit, one of the producers here on shortwave.
0:05.5	Like everybody on the team, I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to best serve
0:10.2	you, our listeners.
0:12.2	And what stories you should hear, like our recent episode about healthcare workers in Nebraska.
0:18.3	One of the states hit hardest by the pandemic right now.
0:22.1	I am exhausted and it's, this is not okay.
0:29.2	I think many healthcare workers are not okay.
0:33.0	Stories like these are so important and they take time, researching, finding sources,
0:39.8	making sure we get it right.
0:42.0	I've been working in public radio a long time and if there's one thing I've learned, it's
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1:04.2	Again, that's donate.npr.org slash short.
1:08.2	And hey, thank you so much.
1:14.5	You're listening to shortwave.
1:17.2	From NPR.
1:19.3	In 2015, Stephanie Strathie and her husband Tom Patterson, both scientists, were traveling
1:24.7	in Egypt.
1:26.0	They saw the pyramids, the Nile, and then as she tells it in this TEDx talk, after dinner
1:31.2	one night.
	...

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