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Shots - Health News
3:00 am
Fri April 26, 2013

A $5.5 Billion Road Map To Banish Polio Forever

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Credit Michaeleen Doucleff / NPR
A health worker marks a baby's finger after giving her a polio vaccine in Moradabad, India.
Credit Ben Curtis / AP
A baby receives a polio vaccine at the Medina Maternal Child Health center in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Wednesday. Somalia has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world.
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Originally published on Fri April 26, 2013 6:59 pm

Polio isn't going easily into the dustbin of history.

The world needs to push it in, throw down the lid and then keep an eye out to make sure it doesn't escape.

That's the gist of a new plan released Thursday by the World Health Organization and other foundations at a vaccine meeting in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

It's a six-year, $5.5 billion program, and its goal is to wipe out polio for good.

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The Salt
2:57 am
Fri April 26, 2013

Exploring Coffee's Past To Rescue Its Future

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Credit Dan Charles / NPR
Eduardo Somarriba is a researcher at the Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Education in Turrialba, Costa Rica.
Credit Historic Distribution of Coffea Arabica Map reprinted with permission from the Specialty Coffee Association of America
Credit Dan Charles / NPR
Orange spots on this coffee leaf are the signs of leaf rust.
Credit Dan Charles / NPR
These seedlings at CATIE (multiplied through advanced laboratory techniques) represent a new experimental line of coffee that's resistant to leaf blight.
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Originally published on Fri April 26, 2013 6:59 pm

At the Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Education (CATIE) in Turrialba, Costa Rica, you can touch the history of coffee — and also, if the optimists have their way, part of its future.

Here, spread across 25 acres, are coffee trees that take you back to coffee's origins.

"The story starts in Africa, no? East Africa," says Eduardo Somarriba, a researcher at CATIE, as we walk through long rows of small coffee trees.

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StoryCorps
2:49 am
Fri April 26, 2013

From Poor Beginnings To A Wealth Of Knowledge

Credit StoryCorps
Herman Blake, left, and Sidney Blake at StoryCorps in New York.
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By editor

Originally published on Mon April 29, 2013 1:14 pm

Herman Blake grew up with his mother and six siblings just outside New York City. It was the early 1940s and the family was poor. This shaped their outlook on life.

"When I was growing up the great emphasis was on being able to get a job because we were on welfare, and it was so humiliating," Herman tells his brother Sidney, who is an Episcopal deacon, during a visit to StoryCorps in New York.

One of the Blake brothers, Henry, who wanted the family to stop depending on welfare, decided to drop out of school so he could help take care of their mother.

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The Salt
2:48 am
Fri April 26, 2013

So Jerry Seinfeld Called Us To Talk About Coffee

Credit YouTube
In an episode of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee called "Larry Eats A Pancake," Jerry Seinfeld has coffee with Larry David.
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By editor

Originally published on Fri April 26, 2013 6:59 pm

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Shots - Health News
2:04 pm
Thu April 25, 2013

Why Finding A TB Test Got Hard

Credit Greg Knobloch / CDC
The PPD test for tuberculosis sparks an itchy welt in people who have been exposed to the bacillus.
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By Nancy Shute

Hospitals and public health departments around the country are having a tough time coming up with a staple of preventive health care: the skin test for tuberculosis.

The shortage, caused by problems at a factory in Canada, is prompting suspension of routine TB testing around the country.

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