Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer review – the gobsmacking truth about vaccines

Want a booster shot of knowledge? David Olusoga and Steven Johnson ’s new show will teach you about the magic, and the horrors, behind the medical breakthroughs of our timeIn 1900, the average global life expectancy was 32. Today, a tiny blink of historical time later, it ’s twice that. In a developed country, you will most likely live to see your grandchildren and can hope not unreasonably to see a great-grandson or daughter, too. The new four-part series Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer (BBC Four), presented byhistorian David Olusoga and US science writer Steven Johnson, explores how a handful of medical breakthroughs got us from there to here.The first episode – naturally enough in the age of Covid – focused on the revolutionary power of vaccines. They are part of what Johnson called the “invisible shield” of public health progress, programmes and policies that we, until early last year, could take for granted. He and Olusoga, talking via Zoom, to ok it in turns to explain first theprecursor to vaccination, variolation (the ancient practice of smearing infected matter from a smallpox sufferer into a cut in the flesh of a healthy person, to protect him or her from the disease ’s worst ravages), and then the development of vaccines. The speed with which humanity moved from Edward Jenner’s linking of milkmaids’ apparent immunity to smallpox via cowpox infection to producing effective vaccines for a novel zoonotic virus mere months after it emerge...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Television & radio Culture Vaccines and immunisation Health Society Race World news Slavery History of science Medical research Coronavirus Infectious diseases Source Type: news