The Viruses That Could Save Us All
The Mother Jones Podcast
Mother Jones
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2018
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week's show, a love story wrapped in a medical mystery—with a Cold War twist. Tom Patterson, a psychologist, was dying from a seemingly unstoppable superbug infection. For months, world-class doctors threw everything at him but nothing worked. That's when his wife, Steffanie Strathdee, an epidemiologist, began considering an unconventional treatment: phage therapy. Science journalist Maryn McKenna joins host Jamilah King, along with Tom and Steffanie, to recount Tom's incredible journey to the brink of death and back, and this fascinating field of medical science we're only just beginning to understand. Also on the show, Mother Jones DC bureau chief David Corn follows Trump's money: what's the deal with that failed Russian hotel bid during the 2016 election?
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Mother Jones Podcast. |
| 0:03.0 | I'm Jamila King in New York. |
| 0:05.0 | On this week's show, something a bit different for us. |
| 0:14.0 | A love story, and this one has everything. |
| 0:18.0 | The Cold War. |
| 0:19.0 | The view in the Soviet Union at the time |
| 0:22.0 | was that anything that was a product of |
| 0:23.4 | capitalism was sort of intrinsically corrupt whereas communism was pure a near-death |
| 0:28.8 | experience the infection was affecting my consciousness, so I was in and out of consciousness very, very quickly. |
| 0:38.0 | A desperate scramble for answers. |
| 0:40.0 | I don't want to keep Tom alive just for my own sake. |
| 0:42.6 | Let's try to see if he wants to live. |
| 0:45.2 | At its heart, a fascinating emerging field of medical science |
| 0:50.0 | that we're only just beginning to understand. |
| 0:52.5 | I would say that my case represents evidence-based hope. |
| 0:56.3 | With the promise of bringing the dying back from the brink. |
| 1:00.9 | Also on the show, David Corn with one chunk of the Trump Russia scandal he thinks you don't hear enough about. |
| 1:08.6 | I think this is one of the big and under covered stories of the 2016 campaign. |
| 1:14.0 | David follows the money. |
| 1:16.0 | That's all coming up. |
| 1:18.0 | Stick around. |
| 1:19.0 | How are you all doing today? We're doing good. So we understand you're going to |
... |
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