In 1942, Cleo Wright was removed from a Sikeston, Missouri, jail and lynched by a mob. Nearly 80 years later, Denzel Taylor was killed by police in the same community. The deaths of these two Black fathers tell a story about the public health consequences of racism and systemic bias. Meet residents determined to live healthier lives after generations of community silence. “Silence in Sikeston” is the podcast about finding the words to say the things that go unsaid. This is an invitation. Perhaps this journalism, these stories, will spark a conversation that you’ve been meaning to have.

All four episodes of Silence of Sikeston are available now on Apple, Spotify, or PRX

To hear all KFF Health News podcasts, click here.

In 1975, smallpox eradication workers in the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka, rushed to a village in the south of the country called Kuralia. They were abuzz and the journey was urgent because they thought they just might be going to document the very last case of variola major, a deadly strain of the virus. 

When they arrived, they met a toddler, Rahima Banu.

She did have smallpox, and five years later, in 1980, when the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated, Banu became a symbol of one of the greatest accomplishments in public health.

That’s the lasting public legacy of Rahima Banu, the girl.

Episode 8, the series finale of “Eradicating Smallpox,” is the story of Rahima Banu, the woman — and her life after smallpox.

To meet with her, podcast host Céline Gounder traveled to Digholdi, Bangladesh, where Banu, her husband, their three daughters, and a son share a one-room bamboo-and-corrugated-metal home with a mud floor. Their finances are precarious. The family cannot afford good health care or to send their daughter to college.

The public has largely forgotten Banu, while in her personal life, she faced prejudice from the local community because she had smallpox. Those negative attitudes followed her for decades after the virus was eradicated. 

“I feel ashamed of my scars. People also felt disgusted,” Banu said, crying as she spoke through an interpreter. 

Despite the hardship she’s faced, she is proud of her role in history, and that her children never had to live with the virus. 
“It did not happen to anyone, and it will not happen,” she said.

Voices From the Episode:

• Rahima Banu
  The last person in the world to have a naturally occurring case of the deadliest strain of smallpox
• Nazma Begum
  Rahima Banu’s daughter
• Rafiqul Islam
  Rahima Banu’s husband
• Alan Schnur
  Former World Health Organization smallpox eradication program worker in Bangladesh

Find a transcript of this episode here.

“Epidemic” is a co-production of KFF Health News and Just Human Productions.

To hear other KFF Health News podcasts, click here.

Subscribe to "Epidemic” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The 1970s was the deadliest decade in the “entire history of Bangladesh,” said environmental historian Iftekhar Iqbal. A deadly cyclone, a bloody liberation war, and famine triggered waves of migration. As people moved throughout the country, smallpox spread with them.

In Episode 7 of “Eradicating Smallpox,” Shohrab, a man who was displaced by the 1970 Bhola cyclone, shares his story. After fleeing the storm, he and his family settled in a makeshift community in Dhaka known as the Bhola basti. Smallpox was circulating there, but the deadly virus was not top of mind for Shohrab. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I was more focused on issues like where would I work, what would I eat,” he said in Bengali.

When people’s basic needs — like food and housing — aren’t met, it’s harder to reach public health goals, said Bangladeshi smallpox eradication worker Shahidul Haq Khan.

He encountered that obstacle frequently as he traveled from community to community in southern Bangladesh.

He said people asked him: “There's no rice in people's stomachs, so what is a vaccine going to do?”

To conclude this episode, host Céline Gounder speaks with Sam Tsemberis, president and CEO of Pathways Housing First Institute.

He said when public health meets people’s basic needs first, it gives them the best shot at health.

In Conversation With Host Céline Gounder:

• Sam Tsemberis
  Founder, president, and CEO of Pathways Housing First Institute
  @SamTsemberis

Voices From the Episode:

• Shohrab
  Resident of the Bhola basti in Dhaka
• Iftekhar Iqbal
  Associate professor of history at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam
• Shahidul Haq Khan
  Former World Health Organization smallpox eradication program worker in Bangladesh

Find a transcript of this episode here.

“Epidemic” is a co-production of KFF Health News and Just Human Productions.

To hear other KFF Health News podcasts, click here.

Subscribe to "Epidemic” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.