The Mysterious Case Of Alpha Gal

The Sporkful

SiriusXM Podcasts

Arts

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the first 40 years of her life, Amy Pearl was a card-carrying member of the meat club; she literally had a credit card from the famous Brooklyn steakhouse Peter Luger. Then one day she ate a porterhouse steak, and nearly died. This week we join forces with our friends at Radiolab to tell the story of how Amy's mysterious allergy was identified by scientists.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I Worse XM Podcasts.
0:07.0	I wish that I could still eat anything.
0:16.0	I feel like it's not good to have an allergy in the end.
0:20.0	It's an extra worry that you shouldn't have to think about.
0:26.4	This is the Spork Full. It's not for foodies. It's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
0:35.3	Today we're bringing you the story of a friend of mine, Amy Pearl.
0:38.8	Okay.
0:39.4	Is your mic on?
0:40.2	Yeah.
0:41.1	I'm getting, this is making me nervous.
0:44.4	Maybe I should get my epipen.
0:46.3	Are you allergic to radio greatness?
0:48.7	Not that I know of.
0:49.9	I haven't been really exposed to it yet.
0:52.6	Anyway, let's go.
0:54.8	Amy and I used to work together at New York Public Radio.
0:57.1	She had this really strange story that she wanted to share.
0:59.8	It's about her experience developing Alpha-Gal syndrome.
1:03.0	Over the past few years, positive cases of Alpha-Gal have risen dramatically across the U.S.,
1:07.5	and it's emerged as a major public health concern, despite the fact that many
1:11.3	clinicians still haven't heard of it. When Amy's story began over a decade ago, there was even
1:15.7	less known about it than there is now, her story was a medical mystery. We collaborated with the
	...

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