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Journeys of Discovery: Santa Barbara author's new book, Vaccines & Bayonets

Courtesy Bee Bloeser
Bee Bloeser's new book, Vaccines & Bayonets

Correspondent Tom Wilmer visits with Santa Barbara, California based author Bee Bloeser about her new book, Vaccines & Bayonets: Fighting smallpox in Africa amid Tribalism, Terror and the Cold War.

Bloeser accompanied her husband Carl to West Africa with her two kids in tow back in 1969. The CDC dispatched Carl Bloeser to eradicate smallpox—a disease that killed more than 300 million souls worldwide in the 20th Century.

The family’s incredible journey took them from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea—a tiny country controlled by a despotic murderous ruler.  Join Bloeser as she recounts their incredible journey and Carl’s successful eradication of smallpox from West Africa and the world.

Underwriting support for Journeys of Discovery provided by Nashville's Big Back Yard economic initiative focused on rural communities in the southwest quarter of Tennessee and the Shoals Region of Northern Alabama.

You are invited to subscribe to the Lowell Thomas Award-winning podcast travel show, Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer, featured on the NPR Podcast DirectoryiHeartRadioApple Podcast.

Credit Courtesy Bee Bloeser
Dodge truck Carl Bloeser used in West Africa in successful quest to eradicate smallpox.

 

  

Credit Courtesy Bee Bloeser
Smallpox hospital Carl Bloeser set up in Bangladesh.
Bee Bloeser author of Vaccines & Bayonets visits with correspondent Tom Wilmer.

  

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Tom Wilmer produces on-air content for Issues & Ideas airing over KCBX and is producer and host of the six-time Lowell Thomas award-winning NPR podcast Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer. Recorded live on-location across America and around the world, the podcasts feature the arts, culture, music, nature, history, science, wine & spirits, brewpubs, and the culinary arts--everything from baseball to exploring South Pacific atolls to interviewing the real Santa Claus in the Arctic.
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