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The Nocturnists

The 100-Year Turnaround in Child Survival with Perri Klass, MD

The Nocturnists

Emily Silverman

Medicine, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.8614 Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Pediatrician and author Perri Klass joins us to discuss the dramatic fall in child mortality, drawing from her book The Best Medicine. She traces how clean water, vaccines, antibiotics, and neonatal care transformed family life, revisits once-feared diseases and the breakthroughs that conquered them, and reflects on the cultural shift that made childhood death unacceptable. We also explore the return of measles amid misinformation, the evolution of pediatrics from infection-fighting to child development, and what it means to raise kids in the most medically protected era in history.

Find show notes, transcript, and more on our substack and website

The Nocturnists is made possible by the California Medical Association and donations from listeners like you.

This episode of Conversations is sponsored by The Physicians Foundation

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is how women's health has been for decades.

0:04.0

People aren't studying women because they have this excuse that it's too complicated.

0:10.0

In the beginning, I think they tried to treat us like,

0:13.0

just don't worry your pretty little head about this.

0:16.0

Just run along and we'll take care of the science.

0:18.0

So this lack of insight makes women poorer.

0:22.4

This community had been there all along in the shadows,

0:25.3

and we'd all just kind of been dealing with it.

0:27.6

In the shadows.

0:29.0

You know that spot, right?

0:33.2

But despite the obstacles, things are changing.

0:37.3

Women's health is not half of health care.

0:40.1

We are more than half the market.

0:42.3

Someone should be doing this, so why not me?

0:46.0

I'm Golda Arthur, and this is overlooked.

0:48.6

A podcast with a point of view that women's health cannot wait, not anymore.

0:54.7

And this season, we're bringing you stories and conversations with people who are moving the needle.

1:01.2

Scientists who are doing some wild things right now in women's health.

1:04.6

It is unusual.

1:06.9

We are collecting menstrual blood because it is just a source of so many great cell types and biomarkers.

1:15.3

Researchers who are learning more about Alzheimer's and women, this made me think, oh my gosh, Alzheimer's disease could start as soon as the brain stops developing.

1:26.3

And men who are stepping up.

...

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