Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: Women in Modern Medicine
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
- 0:07Speaker 1: I Ever Told You production. I Heart you, and welcome
- 0:19Speaker 1: to another classic Today we are bringing back one on
- 0:22Speaker 1: women and modern medicine. Unfortunately, this has been on my
- 0:28Speaker 1: mind a lot because we are seeing a lot of
- 0:31Speaker 1: misinformation and dispreparation around health in the United States. I
- 0:35Speaker 1: have a lot of friends who work with governmental health
- 0:39Speaker 1: organizations that have been impacted by all of these things,
- 0:43Speaker 1: So it's just been something on my mind. I know,
- 0:46Speaker 1: we talk about vaccines and here and things like that,
- 0:49Speaker 1: so it's something that is a big part of our
- 0:52Speaker 1: conversations we're having right now. So that being said, please
- 0:57Speaker 1: enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
- 1:05Speaker 1: I come to staphone never told your protection of iHeart
- 1:08Speaker 1: Radio SD Samantha. Today, I have a two part question
- 1:19Speaker 1: for you. I think we've already talked about the first one,
- 1:22Speaker 1: but were you ever interested in a career in medicine?
- 1:28Speaker 2: Yeah? Actually I started out my college career with the
- 1:33Speaker 2: idea that I was going to be pre med. I
- 1:35Speaker 2: knew I was going to be pre med. It also
- 1:36Speaker 2: went along without wanting to be a missionary. But I
- 1:38Speaker 2: wasn't going to be a missionary without being actually helpful
- 1:42Speaker 2: and actually saving lives hopefully. And then as I started
- 1:45Speaker 2: doing all of my medical courses slash all of the sciences,
- 1:49Speaker 2: I realized how bad I was at that and I
- 1:52Speaker 2: barely passed chemistry, and I was like, let me find
- 1:56Speaker 2: another way to help.
- 1:59Speaker 1: What was your goal? What was your how are you
- 2:02Speaker 1: envisioning at working in that field.
- 2:04Speaker 2: I was envisioning becoming a general practitioner, being able to
- 2:09Speaker 2: co out in service and travel and help communities. I
- 2:13Speaker 2: was thinking, you know, obviously traveling abroad where there's less access,
- 2:20Speaker 2: and I wanted to really be helpful. Probably doctors without
- 2:24Speaker 2: borders would have been my route m h and all that,
- 2:27Speaker 2: thinking that I would be poor and hopefully you know,
- 2:31Speaker 2: going out in the world and helping. That was what
- 2:33Speaker 2: I was envisioning.
- 2:34Speaker 1: I see, I see, I see, Okay. And the second
- 2:37Speaker 1: part of my question is are you or were you
- 2:40Speaker 1: ever big into like medical TV shows?
- 2:44Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, I think I got caught up
- 2:45Speaker 2: an er for a little while, and maybe it was
- 2:47Speaker 2: the soap opera bit that I liked George Clooney. Who
- 2:50Speaker 2: doesn't love George Clooney at that point in time, But
- 2:53Speaker 2: I did watch that for a little while. Scrubs really
- 2:56Speaker 2: really enjoyed Scrubs. Who doesn't love people being self hating
- 3:00Speaker 2: as well as saving lives and having some heart?
- 3:02Speaker 1: You know?
- 3:03Speaker 2: But yeah, I did you?
- 3:05Speaker 1: Yeah I didn't really, but I did. I loved Scrubs
- 3:09Speaker 1: and to this day, like I can quote Scrubs. I
- 3:12Speaker 1: have the soundtrack. I was a huge Me and my
- 3:15Speaker 1: friend group, we were really into Scrubs and it's funny,
- 3:18Speaker 1: like one of my favorite episodes is the episode where
- 3:21Speaker 1: they make fun of House, and I'd never seen House,
- 3:24Speaker 1: so I didn't get half the jokes, but I still loved.
- 3:27Speaker 2: I'd watched a few episodes of House and I didn't
- 3:30Speaker 2: get too caught up in that. But yeah, I did
- 3:34Speaker 2: you talk about soundtrack? I have to know have you
- 3:37Speaker 2: watched any of it streaming since the original?
- 3:42Speaker 1: I mean I owned the DVDs, so.
- 3:45Speaker 2: You haven't watched it streaming because they changed some music
- 3:47Speaker 2: I don't know, share or whatever. But because I watched
- 3:51Speaker 2: it so much, I knew what music would win, And
- 3:55Speaker 2: now watching it on streaming, I'm like, wait that, Yeah,
- 3:57Speaker 2: that's not how that goes.
- 3:59Speaker 1: Let me tell you, Samantha Supernatural, A lot of those
- 4:02Speaker 1: songs and not the same, and I'm always like, no, See.
- 4:08Speaker 2: That's the one blessing that I do have is I
- 4:11Speaker 2: don't know that you.
- 4:12Speaker 1: Can't Yeah, you can't compare, that's true.
- 4:14Speaker 2: But with Scrubs I did because I was in that
- 4:17Speaker 2: Netflix era of getting the DVDs. Yeah, oh yeah, and
- 4:22Speaker 2: I would watch all the Scrubs through Netflix subscriptions and
- 4:26Speaker 2: now comparing it to our streaming network and the fact
- 4:29Speaker 2: that songs have changed, like it, it's so notable that
- 4:33Speaker 2: it distracts me from the rest of the show.
- 4:35Speaker 1: Yeah, well, music is a really big part of that
- 4:38Speaker 1: show exactly.
- 4:39Speaker 2: Well, yeah, of course.
- 4:41Speaker 1: Of course, that's why I got a sound dressed. They're
- 4:45Speaker 1: so good.
- 4:46Speaker 3: I remember when was it Gray's Anatomy and Scrubs both
- 4:50Speaker 3: had an episode in the same week that had the
- 4:52Speaker 3: phrase how to save a life and people were arguing
- 4:55Speaker 3: about who used it better.
- 4:58Speaker 2: But the scripturally used it for like a split second
- 5:01Speaker 2: of like, no, not that song anyway. Are we talking
- 5:05Speaker 2: about this because I keep talking about.
- 5:08Speaker 1: That's for shured probably so to me. We're going to
- 5:12Speaker 1: talk about women in medicine, and specifically modern medicine because
- 5:17Speaker 1: more and more people are getting the vaccine, which is
- 5:20Speaker 1: very exciting. Yes, And yeah, we wanted to highlight some
- 5:23Speaker 1: of the more recent accomplishments of women in this field.
- 5:28Speaker 1: And yeah, we've done episodes on women in nursing and
- 5:31Speaker 1: medicine before, also women's pain being dismissed on the other
- 5:35Speaker 1: side of that. But we wanted to showcase some women
- 5:40Speaker 1: that you might not have heard of doing some really
- 5:42Speaker 1: amazing things in the field of modern medicine.
- 5:45Speaker 2: Yes, and we're all about giving flowers to those that
- 5:48Speaker 2: are still with us today, Yes, but we wanted to
- 5:50Speaker 2: start out with some numbers.
- 5:52Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 5:52Speaker 2: So throughout history and despite obstacles, women have been behind
- 5:56Speaker 2: medical innovations around blood transfusions, organ transplants, and all a
- 6:00Speaker 2: lot of areas in reproductive health, says, the medical field
- 6:03Speaker 2: has long ignored women. Women, of course, have had to
- 6:06Speaker 2: make do for themselves.
- 6:08Speaker 1: Yes, and while there are still disparities in terms of
- 6:11Speaker 1: gender and race in the medical field, more and more
- 6:13Speaker 1: women are entering it and shaping it at all levels
- 6:16Speaker 1: and professions. Numbers from twenty fifteen indicate that in the
- 6:19Speaker 1: United States, one third of active physicians are women, half
- 6:23Speaker 1: of all new medical graduates are women, eighty eight percent
- 6:26Speaker 1: of nurse practitioners eighty three percent of nurses and sixty
- 6:29Speaker 1: three percent of physician assistance. We've also talked about how
- 6:33Speaker 1: women in medicine are more likely to experience issues around burnout,
- 6:37Speaker 1: wage gap, discrimination, lack of mentors, maternity leave, and toxic environments,
- 6:42Speaker 1: among other things, which are all issues that need to
- 6:45Speaker 1: be addressed and also not isolated to the medical field.
- 6:48Speaker 1: But definitely a lot of articles, especially during the pandemic,
- 6:53Speaker 1: have been written about burnout in particular, so that is
- 6:56Speaker 1: something that we need to keep an eye on. But
- 7:00Speaker 1: all right, let us start our list of women with
- 7:05Speaker 1: doctor Kismechia Corbette or doctor Kizzy Corbett.
- 7:09Speaker 2: Who is a great Twitter followed by the way, if
- 7:11Speaker 2: you haven't started following her, she's fantastic.
- 7:13Speaker 1: You should follow her absolutely. She is a thirty four
- 7:17Speaker 1: year old black woman who has been at the forefront
- 7:20Speaker 1: of the fight against COVID nineteen. Corbett is one of
- 7:23Speaker 1: the top scientists working on who has been working on
- 7:26Speaker 1: a COVID vaccine for the National Institutes of Health. She
- 7:29Speaker 1: and her team worked with pharmaceutical company Maderna to pioneer
- 7:33Speaker 1: an mRNA vaccine, and this is a vaccine that has
- 7:36Speaker 1: an efficacy rate of over ninety percent. Recently, when doctor
- 7:41Speaker 1: Anthony Fauci was asked about the input of African American
- 7:44Speaker 1: scientists on the vaccine, Fauci responded, the very vaccine that's
- 7:48Speaker 1: one of the two that has absolutely exquisite levels ninety
- 7:52Speaker 1: four to ninety five percent efficacy against clinical disease and
- 7:55Speaker 1: almost one hundred percent eficcy against serious disease that are
- 7:59Speaker 1: shown to be clearly safe. That vaccine was actually developed
- 8:03Speaker 1: in my institute's vaccine research Center by a team of
- 8:05Speaker 1: scientists led by doctor Barney Graham and his close colleague,
- 8:09Speaker 1: doctor Kismikia Corbett r Kizziy Corbett Kizzy is an African
- 8:13Speaker 1: American scientist who's right at the forefront of the development
- 8:15Speaker 1: of the vaccine. Doctor Corbett's talent, determination, curiosity, and empathy
- 8:20Speaker 1: manifested from a young age, and she secured awards and
- 8:23Speaker 1: monetary funding for her university studies, and she got a
- 8:26Speaker 1: spot as an intern at the National Institutes of Health.
- 8:29Speaker 1: For her PhD, she studied immunology and microbiology while also
- 8:33Speaker 1: working as a research assistant studying viral infections. In twenty fourteen,
- 8:38Speaker 1: she took a post doc position at the NIH's Vaccine
- 8:42Speaker 1: Research Center. In January twenty twenty, doctor Corbett received an
- 8:46Speaker 1: email from one of her coworkers basically telling her and
- 8:49Speaker 1: her teammates to buckle up that their training was about
- 8:52Speaker 1: to be put to use, and yes, yes it was.
- 8:55Speaker 2: It was.
- 8:55Speaker 1: Oh got Yes. Doctor Corbett has spoken about her experience
- 9:00Speaker 1: as a black woman, a doctor and the importance of visibility.
- 9:04Speaker 1: I felt like it was necessary to be seen and
- 9:06Speaker 1: not to be a hidden figure, so to speak, she said.
- 9:09Speaker 1: I felt that it was important to do that because
- 9:11Speaker 1: the level of visibility that it would have to younger
- 9:13Speaker 1: scientists and also to people of color who have often
- 9:16Speaker 1: worked behind the scenes and essentially who have done the
- 9:18Speaker 1: dirty work for these large efforts towards a vaccine. This
- 9:22Speaker 1: person who looks like you has been working on this
- 9:24Speaker 1: for several years, and I also wanted it to be
- 9:26Speaker 1: visible because I wanted people to understand that I stood
- 9:29Speaker 1: by the work that I'd done for so long as well.
- 9:32Speaker 1: And she's also been really vocal about the disproportionate impact
- 9:36Speaker 1: of COVID on black communities, and I think every woman
- 9:40Speaker 1: on here we could do a whole episode on like
- 9:42Speaker 1: we're doing kind of a brief bio in these but
- 9:45Speaker 1: her story is really inspiring and fascinating. And also Maderna
- 9:49Speaker 1: is the vaccine that I am getting. So also by
- 9:53Speaker 1: Dolly Pardon, Yes, that was a legitimate reaction to.
- 9:58Speaker 2: So many good things that And yeah, doctor Corbett has
- 10:01Speaker 2: also been keeping a kind of thread on her Twitter
- 10:05Speaker 2: about her presenting about the vaccine and she has been
- 10:09Speaker 2: a really big proponent in talking to the black community
- 10:13Speaker 2: about what the vaccine is. And because let's be honest,
- 10:16Speaker 2: there's a lot of distrust when it comes to medicine
- 10:19Speaker 2: in the black community. Rightly so, yeah, rightly so, and
- 10:24Speaker 2: they should be suspicious and I would be suspicious. I
- 10:27Speaker 2: am suspicious sometimes, I mean for sure. But she has
- 10:31Speaker 2: been on the forefront and trying to talk about it
- 10:33Speaker 2: and how it is important and what she did and
- 10:36Speaker 2: making sure that this vaccine was safe and also that
- 10:40Speaker 2: it was accessible. So kudos to doctor Corbett. And now
- 10:44Speaker 2: we want to move on to doctor Rachel Sneersen born
- 10:47Speaker 2: in Warsaw, Poland in nineteen thirty two, who earned her
- 10:50Speaker 2: medical degree from Hadasa Medical School at the Hebrew University
- 10:53Speaker 2: in Jerusalem, and she was best known for her work
- 10:56Speaker 2: on the Himophilus influenze type B or hib which is
- 11:00Speaker 2: a bacterium that was one of the principal causes of
- 11:03Speaker 2: meningitis and pneumonia and responsible for over three million serious
- 11:07Speaker 2: illnesses and over three hundred and seventy five thousand deaths
- 11:10Speaker 2: in children around the world. She came to work as
- 11:13Speaker 2: an instructor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine for
- 11:16Speaker 2: the Department of Pediatrics and the Laboratory of Imminology. There
- 11:20Speaker 2: she met doctor John B. Robbins, who would move on
- 11:22Speaker 2: to the Division of bacterial Products in nineteen seventy four
- 11:26Speaker 2: and then came back round to the National Institute of
- 11:28Speaker 2: Child Health Development or the NICHD in nineteen eighty three,
- 11:33Speaker 2: and it was during this time doctor Schneerson and doctor
- 11:36Speaker 2: Robbins were able to help create the vaccine through use
- 11:39Speaker 2: of conjugates, which helped make the vaccine safer and more
- 11:42Speaker 2: effective for younger children and as young as I believe
- 11:44Speaker 2: two months old, and this process of conjugating would later
- 11:48Speaker 2: be used to help create other vaccines for diseases such
- 11:51Speaker 2: as whooping cough, typhoid, and certain types of malaria, in
- 11:54Speaker 2: even anthrax, and through her work she has received many
- 11:58Speaker 2: different awards such as the Albert Laskar Clinical Medical Research
- 12:02Speaker 2: Award in ninety six, the World Health Organization Children's Vaccine Initiative,
- 12:06Speaker 2: Pastor Award, Infectious Disease Society of American Citation Award, and
- 12:10Speaker 2: was also elated to the NICHD Hall of Honor, and
- 12:14Speaker 2: she was eventually named as head of the Section of
- 12:16Speaker 2: Vectial Disease, pathogenicis and Immunity with doctor Robbins and finally
- 12:20Speaker 2: retired in twenty twelve. Wow.
- 12:24Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a lot of awards.
- 12:27Speaker 2: They saved a lot of lives and yet, by the way,
- 12:30Speaker 2: the disease is fairly pretty much eradicated and has not
- 12:33Speaker 2: been seen by the new medical field that they have
- 12:37Speaker 2: not seen it since then.
- 12:38Speaker 1: Dang, Well, we have some more women we want to highlight,
- 12:43Speaker 1: but first we have a quick break for word from
- 12:45Speaker 1: her sponsor. Am were back, Thank you sponsor. Okay, So
- 13:02Speaker 1: now let's talk about Mary Geynan. Her story is amazing.
- 13:07Speaker 1: I can't believe I hadn't heard it before. So after
- 13:09Speaker 1: earning her PhD in physiology, graduating from John Hopkins University
- 13:13Speaker 1: School of Medicine, and completing a residency, Doctor Geynan began
- 13:17Speaker 1: working at the Centers for Disease Control of Prevention in
- 13:20Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, and this is when only ten percent
- 13:23Speaker 1: of medical graduates were women. She started out in the
- 13:27Speaker 1: Epidemic Intelligence Service or the EIS, which is often described
- 13:32Speaker 1: by her too as the Medical FBI, where she studied
- 13:36Speaker 1: global disease outbreaks. She was the only woman of thirty
- 13:39Speaker 1: nine physicians. Through this, she helped out on a smallpox
- 13:43Speaker 1: eradication campaign and for her work, the World Health Organization
- 13:47Speaker 1: awarded her the Noble Order of the Bifurcated Needle in
- 13:50Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. What a name, I tell you what
- 13:54Speaker 1: the name. But all of this was after her application
- 13:58Speaker 1: to volunteer with india smallpox eradication program was denied twice.
- 14:03Speaker 1: She was told it was because the World Health Organization
- 14:06Speaker 1: and India weren't really looking for women to volunteer. Thank you.
- 14:10Speaker 1: So Guynan asked if India's Prime Minister at the time,
- 14:14Speaker 1: who was a woman, knew about this. And after that,
- 14:18Speaker 1: after Guidan was like, asked about that, and then she
- 14:20Speaker 1: was like, let me speak to your manager. She was
- 14:26Speaker 1: given a spot on the Operations Smallpox zero team and
- 14:31Speaker 1: apparently an elephant became a part of their effort for
- 14:35Speaker 1: transport over flooded rivers. I really wanted to go way
- 14:38Speaker 1: in depth into this, and I was like, Annie, we
- 14:40Speaker 1: have to make this one episode. At the time she
- 14:43Speaker 1: started researching sexually transmitted diseases. She went back to the
- 14:47Speaker 1: CDC two years later in nineteen seventy eight, to work
- 14:50Speaker 1: in the Veneural Disease Control Division as a clinical investigator.
- 14:55Speaker 1: Do her work in this field, she became known as
- 14:57Speaker 1: a national expert on genital herpes, which happens somewhat accidentally.
- 15:03Speaker 1: The media sometimes called her doctor Condom or doctor Herpes.
- 15:07Speaker 1: She basically she appeared in an interview where the chiron
- 15:11Speaker 1: below her was like std expert and she did not
- 15:16Speaker 1: know what was going to say that, and then every
- 15:18Speaker 1: other news outlet contacted her. It was like, we need
- 15:21Speaker 1: you to come talk about this. She was worried about
- 15:24Speaker 1: the reaction of her religious conservative mother when appearing on
- 15:28Speaker 1: TV to discuss sexually transmitted diseases. Apparently her mother never
- 15:32Speaker 1: even said sex, but after watching her on sixty minutes,
- 15:37Speaker 1: her mother allegedly said, congratulations, dear, your hair looked very nice.
- 15:42Speaker 1: Such a mother.
- 15:45Speaker 2: Mother thing to do.
- 15:47Speaker 1: Yes, I don't want to touch on these other subjects.
- 15:49Speaker 1: But your hair looks good.
- 15:50Speaker 2: It's wonderful.
- 15:52Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And guy didn't even turned down that appearance
- 15:54Speaker 1: on sixty Minutes because she was kind of frustrated with
- 15:58Speaker 1: the media's coverage of STDs sdis and also she was
- 16:01Speaker 1: worried about her mother, but the CDC pressured her into
- 16:04Speaker 1: doing it, and she once said after reporter asked her
- 16:08Speaker 1: if you could get AIDS from a toilet seat quote,
- 16:10Speaker 1: the only way that I know you can get AIDS
- 16:12Speaker 1: is if you sit on it before someone else gets up. Yeah.
- 16:18Speaker 1: She was full of those kind of comments. Doctor Gynan
- 16:21Speaker 1: attempted to draw attention to the AIDS epidemic in the
- 16:24Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, but found that the media was reluctant to
- 16:27Speaker 1: cover it since early reports seemed to suggest it mainly
- 16:29Speaker 1: impacted the homosexual community. She, along with the CDC, worked
- 16:33Speaker 1: to raise support awareness around AIDS. Doctor Geyan set up
- 16:37Speaker 1: the CDC's AIDS Task Force. Because of her work, she
- 16:41Speaker 1: was promoted in nineteen eighty four to the CDC's Associate
- 16:44Speaker 1: Director for the Division of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and she
- 16:47Speaker 1: became the CDC's first female Chief Scientific Advisor From nineteen
- 16:52Speaker 1: ninety to nineteen ninety five, she acted as Chief of
- 16:55Speaker 1: Evaluation for the country's HIV prevention program. She's a founding
- 16:59Speaker 1: d at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of
- 17:03Speaker 1: Public Health and has done extensive research into childhood leukemia.
- 17:08Speaker 1: Her work with AIDS was the topic of the book
- 17:11Speaker 1: and later HBO documentary and the band played on. Apparently,
- 17:16Speaker 1: she is only in one scene in the movie, where
- 17:19Speaker 1: she is baking a cake. Guynan said of this, they
- 17:22Speaker 1: didn't know how to portray a woman scientist. In twenty sixteen,
- 17:27Speaker 1: she published the book Adventures of a Female Medical Detective
- 17:30Speaker 1: in Pursuit of Smallpox and AIDS. Wow, that's a great title.
- 17:35Speaker 1: I know. I want to read it.
- 17:37Speaker 2: I want you.
- 17:37Speaker 1: I'm ready.
- 17:38Speaker 2: Let's get it. Maybe a book club, yes, think about
- 17:41Speaker 2: how that would translate to a book club. But and
- 17:44Speaker 2: next we're going to talk about Julie Linn Wong. Doctor
- 17:47Speaker 2: Wong not only is a physician and public health specialist,
- 17:50Speaker 2: but she is an expert in robotics and space medicine.
- 17:54Speaker 2: The Harvard and educated doctor has made history by combining
- 17:57Speaker 2: her knowledge of robotics technology with my medicine. In twenty eleven,
- 18:01Speaker 2: doctor Wong founded the three D four MD with the
- 18:05Speaker 2: idea of using three D printers, solo powered and easily
- 18:08Speaker 2: portable to print healthcare supplies in remote communities, and by
- 18:12Speaker 2: creating affordable three D templates, it would help create low
- 18:15Speaker 2: cost medical supplies on demand. And it's so small it
- 18:18Speaker 2: can fit into a carry on bag for easy travel
- 18:21Speaker 2: from global areas that are hard to get to to
- 18:24Speaker 2: even space. Dumb, dumb, dumb, that's so cool, right, And
- 18:28Speaker 2: speaking of space, doctor Wang was selected to participate in
- 18:31Speaker 2: a thirty days simulated mission at NASA's Johnson Space Center
- 18:35Speaker 2: in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of the Space Shuttle
- 18:37Speaker 2: Challenger tragedy. Wong served as the mission's flight engineer, and
- 18:41Speaker 2: then in twenty seventeen, astronauts actually used a three D
- 18:44Speaker 2: printer for medical supplies using her blueprints from three D
- 18:49Speaker 2: four MD, so they were able to actually create like
- 18:52Speaker 2: finger splinters and all of that while in space, which
- 18:55Speaker 2: what I know. And by the way, my partner, who
- 18:59Speaker 2: loves three D printers and has three, was very excited
- 19:02Speaker 2: when I started talking about this, and she didn't stop there.
- 19:08Speaker 2: She founded the Medical Makers, which is a network to
- 19:10Speaker 2: bring others to build and use their skills and creativity
- 19:13Speaker 2: to continue to fight for humanitarian issues and build sustainable
- 19:16Speaker 2: solutions through technology all over the world.
- 19:19Speaker 1: I love this. I feel like that's another great example
- 19:21Speaker 1: of when you specialize in a thing, like, don't limit
- 19:25Speaker 1: yourself to that one field, right, it can work in
- 19:28Speaker 1: different spaces.
- 19:29Speaker 2: And also she seems to be the overachiever that I'm
- 19:33Speaker 2: scared of that. I'm like, oh my god, You're the
- 19:35Speaker 2: one everybody talks about that can do everything.
- 19:42Speaker 1: Don't be scared. Don't be scared. We do have a
- 19:45Speaker 1: few more women we want a spotlight, but first we
- 19:47Speaker 1: have one more quick break for word from a sponsor,
- 20:02Speaker 1: a fact thank you sponsored.
- 20:05Speaker 2: And earlier in the episode, we talked about the amazing
- 20:07Speaker 2: works doctor Corbett did that helped develop Maderna, but we
- 20:11Speaker 2: also wanted to look at the biologists that laid down
- 20:14Speaker 2: the groundwork to help develop that, as well as the
- 20:17Speaker 2: Pfizer Biointech vaccine, which is doctor Katie Courico and doctor
- 20:21Speaker 2: Perico originally came from Hungary, moved to the US in
- 20:24Speaker 2: her early twenties, and though she's now being recognized for
- 20:28Speaker 2: our titleist work, she was barely making it through in
- 20:31Speaker 2: the world of academia until recently, and like me in
- 20:34Speaker 2: the field, she had difficulty in getting both funding or
- 20:37Speaker 2: even being properly compensated for her work. As a colleague
- 20:40Speaker 2: stated quote, when your idea is against the conventional wisdom,
- 20:44Speaker 2: that makes sense to the star chamber, but it's very
- 20:46Speaker 2: hard to break out. But today she's being recognized for
- 20:50Speaker 2: her breakout studies in mRNA, which is the quote genetic
- 20:54Speaker 2: script that carries the DNA instructions to each sales protein
- 20:58Speaker 2: making machinery. Just to give an next one. And thanks
- 21:01Speaker 2: to her continued work with mRNA, she has helped create
- 21:04Speaker 2: a path to these different vaccines. And doctor Vacci stated, quote,
- 21:08Speaker 2: it has already transformed COVID nineteen, but also other vaccines HIV,
- 21:12Speaker 2: and people in the field are excited influenza, malaria, and
- 21:16Speaker 2: he's talking about how it's going to help create vaccines
- 21:18Speaker 2: for these different things. And doctor Carico never held back.
- 21:21Speaker 2: She was known for her intensity and dedication in working
- 21:24Speaker 2: on her research. Her husband talked about how she was
- 21:27Speaker 2: constantly working, whether it was night and day or even
- 21:30Speaker 2: the weekend, and he actually broke down her pay as
- 21:33Speaker 2: being less than a dollar an hour. For all the
- 21:36Speaker 2: time she has been on it, but apparently she just
- 21:38Speaker 2: didn't care about the money. It was about her work.
- 21:41Speaker 2: She earned her PhD at the University of Sega, then
- 21:43Speaker 2: moved to Philadelphia in nineteen eighty five to continue her
- 21:46Speaker 2: research at Temple University, and she did continue throughout her career,
- 21:50Speaker 2: though she would be rejected and continually overlooked. She worked
- 21:54Speaker 2: with different colleagues and different avenues until finally she and
- 21:57Speaker 2: doctor Weisman were able to show progress in their work
- 22:00Speaker 2: were able to get grants from both Maderna and Biointech,
- 22:02Speaker 2: and on November eighth, the testing showed that the mRNA
- 22:07Speaker 2: that she's been studying actually offered powerful immunity to COVID nineteen,
- 22:11Speaker 2: and she and doctor Weisman were able to get their
- 22:13Speaker 2: vaccine publicly during a press conference on December eighteenth of
- 22:18Speaker 2: twenty twenty, and she was applauded as well as he
- 22:21Speaker 2: was by their peers when they made the announcement, Hey,
- 22:24Speaker 2: the people who helped create this vaccine is here. So
- 22:27Speaker 2: they were given a round of applause by their coworkers,
- 22:29Speaker 2: and she apparently celebrated with just the box of goobers,
- 22:33Speaker 2: which she ate all by herself. Not really sure why
- 22:35Speaker 2: that was the way they put it. I guess maybe
- 22:38Speaker 2: she wasn't able to And she told her husband that
- 22:41Speaker 2: it worked, and her response was I thought so. I
- 22:45Speaker 2: thought that was really fun because it just seemed like
- 22:47Speaker 2: she had been working so hard, to the point that
- 22:49Speaker 2: she had changed hands essentially of who was working with
- 22:53Speaker 2: her and her advisors, and she never stopped. Even people
- 22:56Speaker 2: were like, this is not working. We don't care, she
- 22:59Speaker 2: believed yeah, and because of heart, we were able to
- 23:02Speaker 2: get a vaccine so quickly.
- 23:04Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think because there's been some publicity obviously
- 23:08Speaker 1: about people who have been working on the vaccine, and
- 23:10Speaker 1: so stories about her have come out recently, and I
- 23:14Speaker 1: feel like she really wants an HIV vaccine, Like that's
- 23:18Speaker 1: what is.
- 23:19Speaker 2: Right driving her. Apparently, during one of her conversations with
- 23:22Speaker 2: one of her staff members that she was working with,
- 23:25Speaker 2: said can you get a vaccine for HIV? She's like, yeah,
- 23:29Speaker 2: I can do that, and she has and I think
- 23:31Speaker 2: she continued to work for that. So that's amazing.
- 23:34Speaker 1: Yeah, very determined. So now let's end with doctor Francoise
- 23:39Speaker 1: Barre Sinoussi, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
- 23:43Speaker 1: Medicine in twenty eighteen quote for their discovery of human
- 23:46Speaker 1: immuno deficiency virus. Born in Paris, France, in nineteen forty
- 23:50Speaker 1: seven at doctor Barret Sinusi loved nature from a young
- 23:53Speaker 1: age and in her words, her path was determined largely
- 23:56Speaker 1: by what her and her family could afford. She's started
- 24:00Speaker 1: volunteering at Paris's Institute Pasteur, and by nineteen seventy five
- 24:05Speaker 1: she had earned her PhD. In nineteen eighty three, she
- 24:10Speaker 1: along with Luke Montaigner, discovered the retrovirus that would later
- 24:14Speaker 1: be called human immuno deficiency virus or HIV, which has
- 24:19Speaker 1: proven to be the cause for AIDS. That year, she
- 24:22Speaker 1: was the first author on the paper that reported on
- 24:25Speaker 1: this discovery. She'd been researching retroviruses since the nineteen seventies.
- 24:31Speaker 1: She headed up her own lab at the Institute Pasteur
- 24:34Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight, where she launched several programs looking
- 24:36Speaker 1: into HIVAIDS, including vaccine research. She is in charge of
- 24:42Speaker 1: the Regulation of Retroviral Infection unit at the Institute Pastor
- 24:46Speaker 1: in Paris, where she's also emeritus professor. She was elected
- 24:50Speaker 1: to the French Academy of Science in two thousand and nine,
- 24:53Speaker 1: and from twenty twelve to twenty fourteen she became President
- 24:55Speaker 1: of the International Aid Society. She's been prolific when it
- 24:59Speaker 1: comes to paper as well, authoring or co authoring over
- 25:02Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy original publications and lots lots of
- 25:05Speaker 1: lots more. Her discovery and part led to the development
- 25:08Speaker 1: of life saving drugs that saved millions of lives. However,
- 25:12Speaker 1: more than thirty eight million around the world live with
- 25:15Speaker 1: HIV and not all of them can get treatment. So
- 25:17Speaker 1: doctor Barra Senu C's work continues as well, which I
- 25:21Speaker 1: think I feel like we see in all of these
- 25:22Speaker 1: women this dedication and determination and just to say, I
- 25:29Speaker 1: know that we didn't always put the doctor before their name,
- 25:31Speaker 1: but it's there. The respect is there. Respect. Honestly, this
- 25:36Speaker 1: is amazing. We're talking about.
- 25:38Speaker 2: The amount of achievement that they've done, the amount of
- 25:40Speaker 2: work and blood, sweat and tears. I can't imagine that
- 25:45Speaker 2: they've had to do and even to fight to be
- 25:47Speaker 2: there and to be hard. Yeah, and the fact that
- 25:50Speaker 2: they had to work to be taken seriously and continue
- 25:53Speaker 2: to have to work to be seen even is a
- 25:57Speaker 2: whole other conversation yeah.
- 26:00Speaker 1: Level of impact they've had on our everyday lives, often
- 26:04Speaker 1: unnoticed or unspoken about, is really it's amazing the work
- 26:09Speaker 1: that they've done. We could definitely go further in depth.
- 26:12Speaker 1: Let us know about something you want, and we know
- 26:15Speaker 1: there's so many more stories we could talk about, so
- 26:19Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions, as always, please send them
- 26:23Speaker 1: our away Hola. Yes, you can email us at stuff Media,
- 26:28Speaker 1: Moomstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on
- 26:30Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast or on Instagram at stuff
- 26:33Speaker 1: I Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super
- 26:35Speaker 1: producer Christina hey Yo, thank you, thank you, and thanks
- 26:39Speaker 1: to you for listening. Steffan Never Told You inspection of iHeartRadio.
- 26:42Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
- 26:46Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows