Hey, it's Latif. This is Radio Lab. Okay, go with me here for a second. Imagine all the diseases that afflict human beings. Imagine they all came together and had their own version of the Olympics. Okay. So events are like, who could infect a human the fastest, or who could infect a human from the longest distance or or who could last

in a human body for the longest um but but but i imagine the most heated and heinous competition

of all would be the deadliest like what is the dead? Now, until I heard the episode you are about to hear,

which first broadcast in summer of 2013, I would have been so confident that I could name,

you know, all the gold medal contenders, like Ebola, AIDS, anthrax, now COVID, but no.

This episode is about a disease I didn't even imagine was in the running, but in terms

of mortality rate alone, it beats all of those diseases and every other one you could think of.

This episode is also about a doctor and a patient

who try to beat those odds in the fall of 2004.

Reported by one of the best,

and, if I'm being honest, most morbid producers we've ever had,

Tim Howard.

Here is Rodney versus death.

Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right.

Okay.

All right.

You're listening to Radio Lab.

Radio Lab. Radio.

From W. N. Y. C.

See?

Yeah.

Hey, I'm Chad I boomrod. I'm Robert Quilwich. This is Radio Lab. The podcast. Today on the podcast, a story about death incarnate, or incarnate? And incarnate, I think. I think incarnate. Incarnate. That was Tim Howard, our producer. Oh, I'm sorry. Am I in here? No, you're not supposed to be in yet. You're coming. You're coming. A story about death incarnate. And the man who, well, who thought he could beat death. Yeah. Are you in? Yeah. Nice to meet you. I'm Tim. Comes from our producer, Tim Howard, but you're already here, so just start.

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