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294 episodes

Special Episode: Alev Scott & Cash Cow
14/07/2026 | 48 mins.
Social media ads for egg freezing. A craigslist-like site for breast milk. Fertility fairs featuring IVF clinics alongside shamanic nutritionists. Surrogacy contracts offering a discount for multiple embryos. The rapidly-growing global fertility industry promises hope, fulfillment, and control, as long as you can afford it. Participating in this industry can be empowering. All parts of reproduction are commodified these days, so why not use your free will to take advantage of that, whether through selling breast milk or freezing your eggs? But the global fertility industry is also blatantly exploitative, preying on those who are desperate and vulnerable in order to maximize profits. In Cash Cow: How the Maternal Body Became a Global Commodity - and the Hidden Costs for Women, author and journalist Alev Scott explores that blurred line between empowerment and exploitation in this globally varied industry. Her reporting takes her through the underbelly of the breast milk market, the complicated world of fertility tourism, and the legal and emotional turmoil of surrogacy. As she describes, the morality, legality, and expenses of different procedures are a moving target across the globe, reflecting the struggle to attach moral judgment when science and circumstances change so rapidly. Tune in for a truly fascinating conversation.
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Ep 215 The Hidden Depths of Earwax
07/07/2026 | 54 mins.
In keeping with last week’s theme of “bodily excretions that are kinda gross that you don’t really think about but are actually really important”, we’re devoting this episode to earwax, aka cerumen. In one hour, we somehow manage to weave together stories of earwax impaction, misadventures in ear candling, glimpses of earwax in art history, and a whale of a tale as revealed by cetacean cerumen. The biology and history of earwax proves to be surprisingly rich and revealing and will have you second-guessing yourself as you reach for that cotton swab. Armed with this week’s episode on earwax and last week’s on boogers, you’ll be ready to take on even the most daunting office icebreaker.
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Ep 214 Boogers: Digging for treasure
30/06/2026 | 1h 2 mins.
Hard and crusty. Green and gloopy. Clear and watery. Boogers come in a veritable rainbow of colors and a full spectrum of textures from liquid to solid. They’re really quite impressive if you think about it. Which, of course, few of us do, besides adding tissues to our shopping list or cursing the dagger-like boogers that emerge during a trip to a particularly dry locale. But boogers deserve a lot more credit, and this episode is our attempt at righting that wrong. What are boogers, and what purpose do they serve? How long have handkerchiefs been around, and when did mucus evolve? How many of us are nose-pickers, and how do other species deal with their boogers? More stuffed with snot facts than a nose during flu season, this episode has all the best tidbits to share at your next dinner party.
Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Special Episode: Dr. Carl Elliott & The Occasional Human Sacrifice
23/06/2026 | 57 mins.
Stories of unethical medical experimentation often center around the individuals who spearheaded such atrocities or highlight how patient protection laws were changed in response to the studies. But rarely do they focus on the people who fought to bring these harms to light: the whistleblower. What does it take to blow the whistle, and what does it cost? Are we all capable of blowing the whistle or is there a “whistleblower type”? What happens when there’s no one left to hear the whistle being blown? These are just some of the questions we explore in this week’s TPWKY book club episode, where I’m joined by Dr. Carl Elliott, [Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota] to discuss his latest book The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No. In this profound and personal work, Dr. Elliott reflects on the drivers and consequences of blowing the whistle, interviewing whistleblowers in past scandals as well as drawing from his own experience. We may all think we’d do the right thing, but how many of us are prepared for the cost? Tune in for an enlightening conversation about medical ethics and human nature.
Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ep 213 Burns Part 2: It’s like sci-fi but real
16/06/2026 | 58 mins.
At the turn of the 20th century, a severe burn was often a death sentence. Today, that is no longer the case. Over the past eighty years, burn care has undergone a profound transformation thanks to crucial advances across diverse areas of medicine, such as skin grafting, antiseptic technique, and fluid balance. In this episode, we trace how those pieces of the puzzle were integrated to bring new hope to those with severe burn injuries. But this revolution in burn care is far from over. As we discover, thrilling research in this area is blurring the lines between science and science fiction. Bioengineered skin? 3D-printed skin scaffolding? Nanoparticles? Tune in for all the exciting details!
Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAu
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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About This Podcast Will Kill You

This podcast might not actually kill you, but Erin Welsh and Erin Allmann Updyke cover so many things that can. In each episode, they tackle a different topic, teaching listeners about the biology, history, and epidemiology of a different disease or medical mystery. They do the scientific research, so you don’t have to. Since 2017, Erin and Erin have explored chronic and infectious diseases, medications, poisons, viruses, bacteria and scientific discoveries. They’ve researched public health subjects including plague, Zika, COVID-19, lupus, asbestos, endometriosis and more. Each episode is accompanied by a creative quarantini cocktail recipe and a non-alcoholic placeborita. Erin Welsh, Ph.D. is a co-host of the This Podcast Will Kill You. She is a disease ecologist and epidemiologist and works full-time as a science communicator through her work on the podcast. Erin Allmann Updyke, MD, Ph.D. is a co-host of This Podcast Will Kill You. She’s an epidemiologist and disease ecologist currently in the final stretch of her family medicine residency program. This Podcast Will Kill You is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including science, true crime, comedic interviews, news, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, Buried Bones, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast and more.

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