The Deadly Dose  By  cover art

The Deadly Dose

By: Harini Bhat & Megan Gesner
  • Summary

  • A pharmacist and her longtime friend walk into a bar. What emerges is a dotty little science podcast, with a taste for toxicology. Poisons, medical mysteries, political assassinations, healing rituals, environmental disasters, pandemics & more - nothing is off the lab table here. This is the science of storytelling at its finest. 

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Episodes
  • Ep 120 - The Freedom House Ambulance Service
    Jul 13 2023

    In today's episode, Harini shares the incredible story of The Freedom House Ambulance Service. Freedom House was the first emergency medical service in the United States to provide training beyond first aid and other amazing things, such as being the first emergency service to supply Narcan in overdose cases! Freedom House, staffed entirely by black paramedics, was the blueprint for paramedic training and emergency medical services today (although back then, a ride in the ambulance was entirely free *sigh*).

    Further Reading: "American Sirens" by Kevin Hazzard. 

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    57 mins
  • Ep 119 - Ozempic: No Longer Hot Right Now
    Jul 5 2023

    In today's episode, Megan provides a step-by-step update on her compounded semaglutide journey. She and Harini also contemplate the quick but quiet death of the Ozempic craze (at least by frenzied-netizen-discourse standards). Why were we all so passionately opiniated about Ozempic for five months, and now can barely get DailyMail to cover it? And what has the FDA had to say since the Ozempic name has become passé? Tune in to find out!

    NOTE: Since the recording of this episode, the American Diabetes Association has released new data on a wide-array of novel GLP-1 agonists ("obesity drugs") that truly make semaglutide old news. Read about it here: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/06/ozempic-pills-obesity-drugs-semaglutide/674541/

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 hr and 24 mins
  • Ep 118 - MegaSyn and the Greater Conversation Around AI in Healthcare
    Jun 7 2023

    "AI, so hot right now. AI." - Mugatu

    In today's episode, Harini and Megan discuss the perceived implications of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare. MegaSyn, an AI drug discovery platform originally invented to develop drugs to combat orphan (rare) diseases, made waves in 2021 when it's creators discovered that a simple change of code would lead MegaSyn to generate thousands of known AND novel toxic molecules (for example, VX). Of course, this raised flags across the international healthcare community and posed the questions: what happens if AI falls into the wrong hands, and how can we prevent this from happening? 

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 hr and 2 mins

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