Infectous Dose Episodes

A conversation with astronaut and Texas congressional candidate Terry Virts on science-based leadership, public health, vaccines, and why evidence matters in policy decisions.

Explore why influenza 2025–2026 is severe, how policy shifts affect vaccines, and what’s next in flu prevention. Flu isn’t just seasonal — it’s dangerous.

A reflective New Year’s episode of Infectious Dose about resetting without resolutions, staying curious in hard times, and finding calm at the start of a new year.

Summary This month’s Outbreak After Dark  is a holiday episode — and a heavy one. In A Consumption Christmas Carol , we retell Dickens’ ghost story through the real epidemic that haunted Victorian London: tuberculosis. Long before antibiotics, TB shaped daily life, art, poverty, and public health — romanticized in parlors, devastating in tenements, and deadly across every social class. Moving through past, present, and future, this episode blends gothic storytelling with infe

Learn how the hepatitis B vaccine prevents cancer, why the birth dose matters, and what a policy failure at ACIP reveals about trust in public health.

A leaked FDA memo claimed COVID vaccines caused child deaths. This episode debunks the claim, explains real vaccine safety data, and gives parents evidence-based clarity.

Winter rituals once protected us from disease—spices, fires, cleaning, and more. Explore their hidden epidemiology in this episode of Infectious Dose.

Thanksgiving myths meet infectious history in this episode exploring Pilgrims, Indigenous nations, and the epidemics that shaped early America.

Explore how modern medicine, agriculture, global systems and our individual choices fuel drug-resistant microbes. A clear, compelling look at the growing antimicrobial resistance crisis.

Rift Valley fever outbreak 2025: how the virus spreads from livestock to people in Mauritania, Senegal, and beyond.

Summary Holiday travel is stressful enough without adding surprise stomach bugs or mid-flight fevers to the mix.  In this episode of Infectious Dose , we get practical — not paranoid — about staying healthy on the road. From what to pack in your carry-on (hello, sanitizer and snacks) to navigating airport crowds, plane air, travel germs, kid meltdowns, and post-trip weird rashes, we’re covering it all with science, humor, and zero shame. Whether you’re traveling with toddlers

Discover the true stories behind eye-invading parasites in Outbreak After Dark, the new monthly series within Infectious Dose with Dr. Heather McSharry. Hear about Loa loa, river blindness, eye-eating amoebas, and more in this chilling, science-based medical horror episode.

A neurologist lectures on encephalitis lethargica—the real “sleepy sickness”—until science and nightmare blur in this Month of the Macabre episode from Infectious Dose.

The R@VN: Requiem for the Antivaxxers — a dark reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, where a vaccine denier’s smart-home AI bears witness to his paralysis from polio. A gothic warning about science denial in the age of technology.

Did a hallucinogenic fungus fuel the Salem witch trials? This Infectious Dose episode explores the ergotism theory—and why the truth remains uncertain.

A deadly pneumonia outbreak strikes a downtown hotel. No clear cause. No time to lose. Step into a 1970s public health mystery in this Halloween special: Pneumonia Noir.

Virologist Jim Alwine on pandemic surveillance, research rules, lab-leak politics, and how to rebuild smart public health systems—before the next crisis hits.

Sociologist–organizer Jon Shaffer, PhD, joins Infectious Dose to explain why organizing—not just evidence—wins public-health protections, how DPH is building state teams, and what you can do next. 

West Nile virus is resurging. Explore global updates, U.S. cases, and how this mosquito-borne threat invades the human brain.

A science communicator shares her process for spotting misinformation, cross-checking claims, and sorting fact from fiction.