I am thrilled to share my new Audible Original podcast, Soldiers of Science, which I co-wrote with Alan Alda (who also narrates). Here’s the backstory.
Two years ago Audible asked me to look into a little-known program during the Vietnam War that enabled doctors—all of whom were drafted—to do their military service, not in Saigon, but on the front lines against war and disease at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
I knew it was a story right away, because from this little-known wartime program came some of the greatest medical breakthroughs of our time, many of our nations medical leaders (among them Anthony Fauci) and 9 Nobel Prizes. So far.
But then, COVID happened.
And we found ourselves not only telling Anthony Fauci’s origin story, but also the story of what is possible when we make science and medicine a national pursuit. When we decide—as Franklin Delano Roosevent did in 1940—that “to be a strong nation, we must also be a healthy nation.”
This podcast provides a road map to do just that. Along the way you get to know a determined mother from rural Texas who takes her children to the NIH in a last-ditch attempt to save their lives. There she meets two young doctors whose quest to save her kids, would end up saving MILLIONS more. You will also hear from Harold Varmus who discovered the first cancer-causing gene, as well as Stanley Prusiner, the maverick scientist who figured out the cause of Mad Cow Disease, and many more doctors who have dedicated their lives to saving others.
It has been the honor of a lifetime to work with Alan Alda and to meet and learn from a generation of scientists committed to service that has changed all of our lives for the better. I hope you will enjoy listening. If you are not an Audible Plus member, you can sign up for a free one-month trial. And, please let us know what you think by rating and reviewing!
Thank you for listening!
