You’ve seen the headlines: a food-borne parasite is infecting people across the US, leaving them chained to the toilet sometimes for weeks on end, as they are ravaged by wave after wave of gastrointestinal upset. What the heck is cyclosporiasis and where did it come from? How scared should we be of our raspberries or lettuce or cilantro? To dish out the answers as fast we could, we put together this fact-filled episode about the biology of Cyclospora cayetanensis, how this parasite makes you sick, when we first learned about it (more recently than you might think), and what we know about this current outbreak (or outbreaks). We also probe how recent changes to foodborne pathogen surveillance on a national scale are contributing to the challenges in understanding the scope and origin of outbreaks such as this. You don’t want to miss this one!

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Social media ads for egg freezing. A craigslist-like site for breast milk. Fertility fairs featuring IVF clinics alongside shamanic nutritionists. Surrogacy contracts offering a discount for multiple embryos. The rapidly-growing global fertility industry promises hope, fulfillment, and control, as long as you can afford it. Participating in this industry can be empowering. All parts of reproduction are commodified these days, so why not use your free will to take advantage of that, whether through selling breast milk or freezing your eggs? But the global fertility industry is also blatantly exploitative, preying on those who are desperate and vulnerable in order to maximize profits. In Cash Cow: How the Maternal Body Became a Global Commodity - and the Hidden Costs for Women, author and journalist Alev Scott explores that blurred line between empowerment and exploitation in this globally varied industry. Her reporting takes her through the underbelly of the breast milk market, the complicated world of fertility tourism, and the legal and emotional turmoil of surrogacy. As she describes, the morality, legality, and expenses of different procedures are a moving target across the globe, reflecting the struggle to attach moral judgment when science and circumstances change so rapidly. Tune in for a truly fascinating conversation.

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In keeping with last week’s theme of “bodily excretions that are kinda gross that you don’t really think about but are actually really important”, we’re devoting this episode to earwax, aka cerumen. In one hour, we somehow manage to weave together stories of earwax impaction, misadventures in ear candling, glimpses of earwax in art history, and a whale of a tale as revealed by cetacean cerumen. The biology and history of earwax proves to be surprisingly rich and revealing and will have you second-guessing yourself as you reach for that cotton swab. Armed with this week’s episode on earwax and last week’s on boogers, you’ll be ready to take on even the most daunting office icebreaker.

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Hard and crusty. Green and gloopy. Clear and watery. Boogers come in a veritable rainbow of colors and a full spectrum of textures from liquid to solid. They’re really quite impressive if you think about it. Which, of course, few of us do, besides adding tissues to our shopping list or cursing the dagger-like boogers that emerge during a trip to a particularly dry locale. But boogers deserve a lot more credit, and this episode is our attempt at righting that wrong. What are boogers, and what purpose do they serve? How long have handkerchiefs been around, and when did mucus evolve? How many of us are nose-pickers, and how do other species deal with their boogers? More stuffed with snot facts than a nose during flu season, this episode has all the best tidbits to share at your next dinner party.

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Stories of unethical medical experimentation often center around the individuals who spearheaded such atrocities or highlight how patient protection laws were changed in response to the studies. But rarely do they focus on the people who fought to bring these harms to light: the whistleblower. What does it take to blow the whistle, and what does it cost? Are we all capable of blowing the whistle or is there a “whistleblower type”? What happens when there’s no one left to hear the whistle being blown? These are just some of the questions we explore in this week’s TPWKY book club episode, where I’m joined by Dr. Carl Elliott, [Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota] to discuss his latest book The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No. In this profound and personal work, Dr. Elliott reflects on the drivers and consequences of blowing the whistle, interviewing whistleblowers in past scandals as well as drawing from his own experience. We may all think we’d do the right thing, but how many of us are prepared for the cost? Tune in for an enlightening conversation about medical ethics and human nature.

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At the turn of the 20th century, a severe burn was often a death sentence. Today, that is no longer the case. Over the past eighty years, burn care has undergone a profound transformation thanks to crucial advances across diverse areas of medicine, such as skin grafting, antiseptic technique, and fluid balance. In this episode, we trace how those pieces of the puzzle were integrated to bring new hope to those with severe burn injuries. But this revolution in burn care is far from over. As we discover, thrilling research in this area is blurring the lines between science and science fiction. Bioengineered skin? 3D-printed skin scaffolding? Nanoparticles? Tune in for all the exciting details!

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Burns have been a part of the human experience since our hominin relatives began controlling fire 1.5 million years ago. Until very recently, we’ve been limited in our ability to manage burn wounds with any success, having instead to rely on our body’s innate healing responses. In this episode, we delve into those repair responses, explore what makes burns different from other types of injuries, and examine how we categorize burns based on severity. On the history side of things, we take a tour through humanity’s quest to alleviate the pain and suffering caused by the near-universal experience of getting burned. Ever wondered what Hippocrates would have recommended for a burn? Or what distinguishes a second- from third-degree burn? Tune in to find out.

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An accurate diagnosis can give us so much. It can give us a path forward. It can give us answers to long-standing questions. And it can give us much-needed hope. Yet many people around the world wait years to receive an accurate diagnosis, which can take a profound physical and emotional toll. What underlies these missed or incorrect diagnoses, and what can we do about it? In this week’s TPWKY book club episode, health journalist Alexandra Sifferlin joins me to discuss The Elusive Body: Doctors, Patients, and the Diagnosis Crisis. Her compassionate and sweeping exploration of this topic takes readers across the US as she connects with patients, doctors, and researchers that are deeply impacted by the diagnosis crisis. While plumbing the depths of this pervasive issue, Sifferlin also encounters many people who have dedicated their careers to addressing the diagnosis crisis and bringing people the answers they need and deserve. Tune in for a fascinating conversation on a subject that has affected so many of us.

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It comes on sneakily. You become aware of your stomach. You break out in a cold sweat. Your mouth fills with saliva. And before you know it, you’re leaning over the side of the boat (or out of the car, or into the airplane sick bag), barfing up your breakfast. Motion sickness. We’ve all been there, or at least most of us have. Why? What is it about our physiology that breaks down as soon as we travel via water, vehicle, or air? That’s exactly what we’re going to explore in this episode. From how long humans (and other species) have been coping with these debilitating symptoms to what’s actually going on in your brain to trigger the breakdown, from what’s in the most nauseating historical “cures” for motion sickness to why the drugs we have today have some positive effect, we’re covering it all.

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Once thought to be a rare, always fatal disease, histoplasmosis is now recognized as one of the most prevalent fungal infections in North America. It infects hundreds of thousands of people every year, and its distribution is growing. In this episode, we dissect this abundant fungus, examining how it makes us sick, who tends to get sick, and what we can do about it. We also take you through the history of this fungus, a story that features a surprise discovery, more evidence that everything is tuberculosis, and a spotlight on an extinct bird. Curious to know how all the pieces fit together? Tune in for the full picture.

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In a time when smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, and typhus ran rampant through the streets of London, there was another disease that instilled even more fear than these other killers: syphilis. So feared and so stigmatized was syphilis that it was sometimes called “the secret disease.” A diagnosis would not only sentence you to a drawn-out and painful illness possibly resulting in death, it also labeled you as an outcast and not fit for polite company. Skyrocketing infection rates drove a corresponding rise in syphilis “cures” and an increasingly desperate public. In this TPWKY book club episode, Dr. Olivia Weisser, associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston joins me to discuss her recent book The Dreaded Pox: Sex and Disease in Early Modern London. She transports readers to the hidden shops and stalls that promised a remedy to this feared disease, to the courthouses where a syphilis infection was an important piece of evidence, and to the country houses that held recipe books for those who could not purchase a cure. Tune in for a fascinating glimpse into a time and place where morality, sex, and disease were so strongly entangled.

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