Polio Is Nearly Wiped Out—Unless Some Lab Tech Screws Up

WIRED Science: Space, Health, Biotech, and More

• Episode: Polio Is Nearly Wiped Out—Unless Some Lab Tech Screws Up
• Website: WIRED Science: Space, Health, Biotech, and More
• Feed URL: http://api.spokenlayer.com/feed/channel/v1-wired-science-ext/3c9929b72538c12bd92ac6762f8d798b9d4e8cdca7692ea74f466061d01816cb
• Duration: 00:08:22
• Published: 2019-02-28 22:33

In 1979, a photographer named Janet Parker got a disease that wasn't supposed to exist anymore. At first she thought she had the flu, but then she kept getting sicker, got a rash, and went to the hospital, where doctors—in disbelief—diagnosed her with smallpox. Just a year earlier, the World Health Organization had declared that "mankind probably had seen its last case of smallpox," according to The New York Times. That should have been true.