Epidemiologist Ian Lipkin speaks with reporter and author Marilyn Chase about what pandemic books, movies and TV shows get right, and wrong, about real pandemics.
Environmental scientist Peter Gleick and CEO of the U.S. Water Alliance Mami Hara speak with historian Jessica Marie Johnson about access, availability and conflicts around clean water in the United States.
As rumor spread of bubonic plague in San Francisco, newspapers couldn't agree if it was a nationwide threat or a plot to destroy the economy. Sound familiar?
On May 28, 1900, San Francisco policemen formed a perimeter around Chinatown, and set about building an eight-foot high wall around the district using cement blocks and barbed wire.
Rupert Blue was a physician in the Marine Hospital Service, the precursor to the modern U.S. Public Health Service. In 1901 he launched a public health campaign that ended a deadly bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco.
In 1900, the first case of bubonic plague to ever be confirmed in North America was diagnosed in San Francisco. Scientists did not understand how the disease was transmitted but had long theorized that rats played a role.
Dr. Joseph Kinyoun was a leader in the diagnosis and prevention of infectious diseases in America. He created the Hygienic Laboratory, the nation’s first federal laboratory of medical bacteriology which later became the National Institutes of Health.
In August 1963, Edward R. Murrow, head of the United States Information Agency, began producing a documentary about the upcoming March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. But as the project neared completion, Murrow was losing a battle with cancer. President Lyndon B. Johnson tasked a groundbreaking diplomat, Carl Rowan, with seeing the project through.
