WEBVTT - Special Episode: Dr. Emily Monosson & Blight 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.800 Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this Podcast Will 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.720 Kill You. I am so excited to welcome you all 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.400 to another episode in our tp w K Y book 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:59.320 Club series this season, where we interview authors about their 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.440 wonderful books in science and medicine. The effects these books 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.240 have on us or the inspiration we draw from them, 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.640 can be as varied as the topics of the books themselves. 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.280 With the books just this season, I've been on the 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.880 edge of my seat, reading as fast as I can 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:18.399 to find out what happens next in a book about 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.120 an element essential to all of life. I've been absolutely 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.280 raging over a story of misogyny in academia. My jaw 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:31.360 fully dropped. I've been delighted to learn about the regenerative 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.640 power of the endometrium. And I've been moved in so 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.960 many other ways by the incredible things I've learned from 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.720 these authors. If you'd like to check out the books 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.360 that we've covered so far in this book Club, head 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.200 to our website This Podcast Will Kill You dot Com, 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.680 where you can find pages for each of our released 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.800 book club episodes. And if you, like me, were one 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.720 of those nerds always going past your assigned reading in 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.120 middle school and you want to sneak peek at the 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.680 rest of the books for this season. You can also 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.840 find that through our website under the Extras tab by 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.880 clicking on a link to our bookshop dot org affiliate account, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.880 which will take you to a list of lists, including 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.160 a book club list which features all of the books 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.120 from this season and the one before. But now let's 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.280 turn back to the present and the book will be 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:23.000 chatting about today Blight Fungi and the Coming Pandemic by 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:29.320 author and environmental toxicologist doctor Emily Monison. Here at TPWKY, 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.280 we love talking about fungi, even if we don't do 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.760 it maybe as often as we should. We've covered kittrid fungus, 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:42.320 which affects amphibians, white nose syndrome, which has devastated some 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:46.160 bat populations, as well as a couple of fungal diseases 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:52.240 of public health relevance, cocidioidomycosis and blastomycosis, which was one 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.120 of my favorite topics to research last season because I 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.360 got to talk about dinosaurs. Go check it out if 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:03.160 you haven't already. This handful of fungal pathogens represents only 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:07.400 a teeny tiny proportion of fungi that can be pathogenic 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.680 to humans or animals, and that group itself is minuscule 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:16.560 compared to the mind boggling beautiful diversity of fungal species 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.720 that play so many crucial roles in ecosystems and make 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:27.320 life possible. Fungi truly are amazing, and all fungal species 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:31.679 are certainly worthy of appreciation and attention. But today we're 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.640 setting our sites on the select few that have the 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:39.200 power to do us and plants and other animals harm, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:45.720 especially harm on what is an almost incomprehensible scale. Allow 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.400 me to take a quick trip down memory lane to 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.240 explain in part why I love this book Blight so 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.200 very much. When I was an undergrad at the University 0:03:56.240 --> 0:04:00.920 of Kentucky, I spent many weekends escaping the end traffic 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:05.080 on Nicholasville Road on football game days, my teeny apartment 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.760 with the bright orange walls, and of course the homework 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.080 and studying that I probably should have been doing, and 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.400 I would head down to Red River Gorge. 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:15.320 For some hiking and camping. 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.360 It's an amazing place, and you should absolutely go if 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.640 you get the chance. But sometimes while I was driving 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.920 through the park to get to a trailhead, I would 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.120 stop at the visitor center, initially for the opportunity to 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.039 use a nice, clean bathroom rather than the pit toilet 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.000 at camp. Once I had luxuriated and washing my hands 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.919 with soap and warm water, I would wander around the 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.679 displays at the center, peeping at the photos showcasing its history, 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:46.719 the respectably done taxidermy of local fauna, and what quickly 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:51.360 became my favorite attraction and my reason for future pit stops. 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.080 At the center a massive cross section of a tree 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.360 whose label read something to the effect of This cross 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.440 section is of an American chestnut tree. The tree was 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.120 one hundred and eighty something years old when it was killed, 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.640 along with millions of other chestnut trees, by the chestnut 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.599 blight fungus in the early twentieth century. Next to this 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.920 cross section was a grainy black and white photo showing 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.240 a forest of living chestnut trees, whose colossal size was 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:25.039 made very clear by the tiny humans standing in their shade. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:30.640 My mind was blown. I could not fathom, even with 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.200 the help of more old photographs, the sheer size of 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.440 these forests. How the forests that I walked in today 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.200 were so dramatically different than those of one hundred years before. 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.200 How it all changed so quickly and all due to 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:50.279 a fungus. That chestnut tree cross section has never left 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.040 my mind, and I admit to every month or two 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:58.599 googling historical chestnut forests out of this morbid fascination. The 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.560 story of the chestnut blight is only one of many 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:06.360 told in Emily Monisson's captivating book Blight, which delves into 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.920 the history of fungal epidemics and pandemics and asks what 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.039 these fungal pathogens may have in store for us in 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.800 the future, as our climate changes, as global movement and 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:21.840 travel increases, and as these notoriously hard to eliminate species 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.680 see the chestnut blight fungus establish strongholds in our hospitals 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:31.400 and across the world. So let's take a quick break 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:59.279 and then get into it. Doctor Monison, thank you so 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.520 very much for joining me today. Your book, Blight Fungui 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:07.200 in the Coming Pandemic was such a fascinating read, and 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.440 I loved learning more about this world of infectious disease 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.920 that we you know we on the podcast, but also 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.960 we as a general public, don't really give enough attention to. 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.000 And I'm super excited to dig into some of these 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.360 fungal pathogens and the patterns that we've been seeing lately. 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.280 But first, can you tell me where the idea for 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:28.800 this book first came about? 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:32.280 Sure, And first I just want to say thank you 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.000 for having me, and I love your show, so I'm 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:40.560 excited to be So this is something that kind of 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:42.520 was running in the back of my mind for a 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.760 long time. So many years ago. My first kind of 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:52.160 experience with a fungus like pathogen was a thing called 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.920 late light in tomatoes. So people grow tomatoes, I think 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:57.880 they probably know about late light, especially if they're on 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.240 the East Coast, and that is an organism that I 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:03.680 think there was sort of an outbreak of it in 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.960 around two thousand and six or seven or something like that, 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:10.840 and it was a disease where you're growing tomatoes. They 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.400 look beautiful end of the summer, and all of a 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.040 sudden something just came and hit them and within a day, 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.960 the tomatoes and their leaves just were dead, hanging on 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.280 the stock, looking really pretty ugly. And what it turned 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:28.800 out was that that was a disease called pause by 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:33.880 an organism called phytophra infestins, and it was new to 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.560 the East Coast for tomatoes. And it turns out that 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.280 that disease was probably distributed by a big box distributor 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.560 who was growing tomatoes starts down in I think Florida 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:49.239 and then shipping them up the East Coast and infected 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.240 the Holy East Coast. And we are we have had 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:56.319 phytopha infestins infections pretty much every year or maybe every 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.960 other year ever since then, because once it you know, 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:00.679 So what I learned from that, that was just that 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.440 I was writing and I was trying to understand the disease, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:06.640 and what I learned was that it's caused by phytopher infestins, 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:12.200 same organism that caused or contributed to the Great famine 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:17.400 in Ireland, the potato blight, same organism, that it could 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.760 be spread so easily through buying plants and being distributed 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.480 up the coast, and that once it got established, it's 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.800 very hard to get rid of, if not impossible. So 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.400 that was sort of an introduction to a sort of 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.920 new disease that just kind of came and you know, 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:38.120 caused havoc. And like I said, it's not a fungus, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.800 but it behaves like a fungus. I think when it 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:43.840 was first discovered. They probably thought it was a fungus. 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:48.120 It's really something called a water mold. Then around that time, 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:50.280 there was a paper that came out in a scientific 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:55.199 publication a group of scientists who were across different disciplines 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.760 about the emerging fungal threats across species. And so what 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.480 they were saying was, hey, hey, people, you need to 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.199 take you know, be aware. And they actually included phytopher 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.600 infestins because it's fungus like in this paper. But they 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.080 were talking about frogs and bats and humans and crops 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.560 and that you know, there are fungal pathogens across all 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.640 of these species, and they weren't getting a whole lot 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.720 of attention. So together that seemed like a really good 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:26.160 topic for a book. I had just finished a book 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.400 about how all sorts of things were getting resistant to 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.360 all the chemicals we used to kill them, which was 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.240 a pretty depressing book, and then this would have been 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.680 a pretty depressing book. And I was talking with the 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:38.680 editor and I was like, this is kind of depressing, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:40.960 and she agreed, and so I wrote a different book 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.520 that was kind of hopefully more hopeful. So I put 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.520 this off and I didn't really think about it, and 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:51.600 then in what was it whenever a fairly recently Canada orius. 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:57.079 So the yeast fungus that's been infecting people started infecting 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.240 people and it became a problem, and the CDC started 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.479 putting out alerts. I think that was twenty sixteen maybe, 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.240 So when that came about, that was sort of seemed like, Okay, 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:10.959 maybe it's time to revisit and write a book about 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.000 emergent fungal pathogens. 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:18.120 Of which there are many, and not just in sort 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.680 of these big devastating epidemics that we have come across 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:26.680 the news, like in amphibians or in frogs, or in bats, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.480 but also, as you mentioned, in humans. And so, what 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:33.880 are some of the unusual patterns that we've been seeing 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:38.000 lately in this rise in these human fungal infections that 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.080 have been observed over the past few decades. 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.080 So I think the biggest one. I remember speaking to 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:51.720 an infectious disease doctor who specialized in fungal pathogens, and 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.680 he said he got his degree in the eighties, and 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.680 he said, and if somebody were to come to Rounds 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:01.760 with a heart to treat fungal problem, that would have 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.360 been news like that would have been a big deal, 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.800 and then came HIV human immune deficiency virus, and people 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:14.199 started becoming immunocompromised because of it, and fungal diseases started 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.120 to rise. So that was one of the things because 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.040 a lot of fungal pathogens. So I should say first 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:22.880 of all that there are a lot of fungi in 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.640 the world. Most of them are beneficial, some of them 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.800 don't do anything, and only a very small proportion of 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.760 them cause problems. So that's you know, important to keep 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:36.200 in mind that we really most we rarely rely on 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.240 fungus for a lot of things. So in most fungi, 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:41.800 you know, we're not really the target for a lot 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.240 of fungal pathogens, so there are very few compared to 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.040 viruses and bacteria. They're a small proportion of those kind 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.800 of pathogenic problems. But so it would would have been unusual. 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:54.920 And one of the reasons is we have a pretty 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:57.439 robust immune system, and when we do have a robust 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.720 immune system, we can you know, we're breathing in fungal 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:03.320 spores all the time, and most of us it's not 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.040 you know, for most of us, it's not a problem. 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:10.880 So when people are compromised, then fungi are ouptimistic and 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.280 they take advantage and they can start to infect you. 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.439 So back in the eighties they were rise. There was 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:22.040 a rise. There's also been there was some commentary that 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.000 I came across that in the fifties when we started 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:30.120 using antibiotics on a large scale, so that there was 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:35.400 had a quote somewhere where, you know, they fungal pathogens 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.600 were kind of a disease of the antibiotic age. And 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.880 the thinking there is in part because of our microbiome, 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:44.920 although back then they didn't really talk about that in 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.960 those terms because I don't think we you know, nobody 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.880 really realized how much of a part of us our 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.280 microbiome is. But so we have, you know, fungi and 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.200 bacteria that keep other fungi in bacteria in check. So 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.280 once we start using antibiotics, you wipe out the bacteria 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.320 they're not keeping the fungi in check. 0:14:04.280 --> 0:14:07.360 And we've been seeing some unusual cases in terms of 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.040 like person to person spread or outside of hospitals or 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.720 outside of people who are have immunal compromise of some kind. 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:16.959 Is it sort of a mix of all of these 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.800 things where we have overuse or potential overuse of antibiotics, 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.640 we have higher rates or higher detection of immunal compromise. 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.960 And is it just that we're better at finding and 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:31.280 isolating and treating, well maybe not treating, but finding an 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.120 isolating or detecting fungal infections period. 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:38.000 You know, And it's not just you know, the other 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.760 thing is there's antibiotics, is immune compromise, and there's a 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.800 lot more tissue transplants, so just a lot of good 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.840 you know, medical advances have also contributed to this because 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.080 if you get you know, tissue t plant or an 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.680 organ transplant, I mean, you know, then you can be 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.720 on you know, suppressence to prevent rejection, that sort of thing. 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.400 So we have a large population people that are also 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.240 you know, transplant recipients and things like that. So there's 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.600 a lot of reasons why people can be imm compromised. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.480 The part about are we detecting you know, what changed 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.880 and are we detecting it? So one difference in almost 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:16.920 all most fungal pathogens is that when we think about 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.680 bacteria viruses, we think about spreading it from one to another, 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:21.680 you know, where you sneeze on somebody and you spread 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.200 the virus. We all know that so fun I don't 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.840 spread like that. Usually it's there isn't that sort of 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.320 person to person contact. So that's one thing that was 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:36.200 raised sort of red flags with Canada Orus. So when 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.880 this was the yeast that you know, emerged somewhere around 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.680 twenty sixteen, at least came to recognition in twenty sixteen 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.520 as a problem. I think it was twenty sixteen. I 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:47.960 can't remember the year that the CDC issued their warning. 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:51.560 And part of it was because here we had a yeast, 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.320 and yeast is you know, it's the fungus we have 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:59.720 Canada albacans. That's very common use that a lot of us, 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:01.280 you know, we all have it on us and some 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.000 of us problems, some of it's not. Canada Orus is 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.840 another kind of yeast, and this one was one that 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.680 had a high mortality rate when it infected people in 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.200 the hospitals, and it seemed to spread person to person, 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.760 so it could spread around the hospital room and it 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.840 could spread, you know, they thought maybe health workers were 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.640 spreading Canada ors. It was very hard to clear from 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:25.120 the room. So there were a lot of problems with 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:29.080 Canada ors. And the other odd thing about Canada ors 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:31.680 was that it emerged here in the US and in 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.400 many other places around the world kind of at the 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:38.720 same time. So in twenty sixteen, there were these outbreaks 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.280 in you know, far flung places of this kind of 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.040 new pathogen, which was kind of frightening. And one of 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.560 the things that the scientists that I spoke to at 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.400 CDC had said was, we wondered, was it something we 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:54.120 just couldn't detect before and now we detected it, So 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.800 was it something that was just misdiagnosed and now we 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.000 know that it's something different? And so they could go 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.240 back into the archive. They'd had some programs running where 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.560 you know, physicians were taking samples of fungi from patients, 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.360 and it wasn't that case. It wasn't that they were 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:13.680 detecting it now and not before. They found a few 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.920 cases that had been misdiagnosed, but most of them were 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.760 really new cases, so it really was an emergent fungus 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.800 in that case. So it's a very rare thing to 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.160 have a new disease like that just sort of emerge. 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.640 And this one was so deadly, and it was resistant 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.520 to a lot of the anti fungal medications, and it 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.800 was hard to clear from a room, although they now 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.320 you know, have learned better how to you know, sterilize 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:38.960 a hospital room. 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.840 Afterwards, let's take a quick break and when we get back, 0:17:42.920 --> 0:18:03.160 there's still so much to discuss. Welcome back everyone. I've 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.520 been chatting with doctor Emily Monison about her book Blight 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.360 Fungui and the coming pandemic. Let's get back into things. 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.280 I do want to take a moment because I feel 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.119 like I have to ask, even though I'm sure you 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.040 get this question a lot since writing this book, to 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:19.600 go into the fictional. 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:20.280 World a bit. 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.879 Have you ever played The Last of Us or have 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.360 you watched the show? And if so, any thoughts. 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.119 I have not played the game, but I did watch 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:32.720 the show. So because it came out right before the 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.840 book came out. So one thing was so it came 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:41.200 out in the in January twenty twenty three. So one 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.679 striking thing was right after that came out, there was 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.440 so much about fungal pathogens in the news, and in 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.600 the end of twenty twenty two, the World Health Organization 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:57.160 had just made this big announcement of these nineteen you know, 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:00.239 priority fungal pathogens, and so they were trying to get 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:02.159 it out there in the news. You know, here are 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:03.679 some fung guy that we want you all to be 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.960 aware of. And that didn't really make such a splash. 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:09.640 There was maybe a couple of weeks of the news 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.520 that you know, World Health Organization has these priority fungal pathogens. 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.240 Then Last of Us comes out, and you know, fungal 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.120 pathogens are everywhere. So it was sort of like that 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.320 show did an amazing thing for awareness of fungal pathogens. 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.240 The one thing that I just cringed from in the 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:33.040 show is only mostly that you know, they had no 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.320 concern about spores, you know, so they'd be going in 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.640 where they're dead zombies and you could see the you know, 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.000 my cilia or whatever all over the place, and you know, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:47.600 nobody's worrying about breathing in the stuff. But you know so, 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.240 But I since read you know that they didn't want 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:52.959 to put masks on all the stars. Would you can 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:53.879 imagine why? 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.200 But yep, yep, okay, that makes sense. 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.199 And speaking of masks, I read that you worked on 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.720 this book a lot, or at least wrote a lot 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.119 of this book and researched for this book during the 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.600 COVID pandemic. What was that experience like compared to previous 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.240 books that you've worked on, and another two parter, how 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:19.320 did writing about pathogenic fungui during a pandemic shape this book? 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.040 Yeah, So for this book, I had this, Like the 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:24.960 other books, I've just sat at home and read a 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.879 lot of papers, called up some scientists, and so for 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.160 this one, I'm like, I'm going to do a better book. 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:32.639 I'm going to go visit laboratories and I'm going to 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.480 go see bats and bat caves and frogs and the 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:38.919 you know. So I had this I was going to 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.879 travel and be right there with the scientists, and so 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.040 that's what didn't happen. I did get to Costa Rica 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:46.960 and we went to a banana plantation, which was really 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.720 cool and I'm glad I had that experience. But yeah, 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.080 the rest of it was sitting at home talking to 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:56.640 science except over zoom, so that was different. I also 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:58.000 felt that a lot of them were kind of more 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.439 relaxed because they're sitting in their living rooms talk to me. 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.600 And I think the other thing was once I realized 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.520 that we were really in a pandemic, I had this 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:13.160 book called Blake in the kind of pandemic, I asked 0:21:13.160 --> 0:21:14.919 my editor, I'm like, do you really think people are 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:16.760 going to read this? Maybe I should stop writing it 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.040 because you know, And the last thing is that it 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:26.760 also since it's come out talking about the title, you know, 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:30.600 when I was before, when I proposed it and was 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.440 writing it, there hadn't been a pandemic like this, and 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.280 so the time, you know, pandemic wasn't such a hot 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:41.520 button word. I don't think, you know, And I chose 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:43.399 it because I was trying to say that, you know, 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.280 some of these funky are like, they're big outbreaks there, 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:49.800 not just an epidemic here. You know, small outbreaks here 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.440 and you're an epidemia. So you might have thoughts on 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.879 using the name a word like pandemic. But I wanted 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.679 people to think about it in a large way. But 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.520 then we had this global viral pandemic and I'm like, 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:02.480 but not like that. 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:08.440 So right, right, right, no, And I think I think 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:10.800 it's a completely apt term. I think that we tend to, 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.480 maybe in part because of COVID, think about pandemics as 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:20.080 in happening to humans, especially very human centric ideas of 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:21.440 what a pandemic is. 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:23.359 And that's not necessarily the case. 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.040 But anyway, so all that is to say, is that 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.280 I love the title, and I think that it is 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:33.720 something that we are a little bit in part, have 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.480 this human bias where we don't think about fungi as 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:40.840 much as we do, you know, bacteria and viruses, things 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.240 that we're more familiar with, and humans represent of course, 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:50.040 only a small proportion of organisms impacted by fungal pathogens. 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:52.880 You know, some frog populations around the world have been 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.760 absolutely devastated by b D a cattrid fungus that we 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.240 did an episode on like years back. At this point, 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:03.639 can you talk about why frogs are so susceptible to 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.479 this pathogen and what the latest is on this fungal 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.600 pandemic and are there any glimmers of hope out there? 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:14.880 Yeah, well, so I only know what I've learned from 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:16.800 the scientists, and I spoke to Karen Lips, who is 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:18.920 one of the lead scientists, and you know, she sort 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.520 of experienced this decline. It's a good question about why 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:27.119 frogs are so susceptible. So part of it is is 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:29.920 that their skin they you know, carotin and their skin 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.600 just like we do, and it's food for the Kittrids 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:37.879 are aquatic. So that's one thing is that they'll spread 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:40.960 their spores into the aquatic ecosystem and then that can 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:46.560 spread easily move her on. Frogs breathe, they're basically breathing 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:49.760 through their skin, and so this is a skin pathogen 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:52.719 and so once it infects the skin, it you know, 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:55.040 it will poke through and send out its spores and 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:58.080 when it does that, it's completely ripping apart the frog skin. 0:23:58.200 --> 0:24:02.520 So you've got this skin that's very important for managing 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:05.000 electrolytes coming in and out, and then you've got all 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.280 these it's just being shredded by this fungus that's eating 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:12.639 the skin and then growing and sending out its spores 0:24:12.720 --> 0:24:17.960 through the skin. And so that is what kills the frogs. 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:21.720 They're not I mean they are. So there's this obviously, 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:25.520