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The AIH Transcript for January 26, 2021

Hosts: Carol Off and Chris Howden

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening. I'm Chris Howden. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

CH: Tonight:

CO: Making important points. As human trials for a made in Canada covid-19 vaccine begin. The CEO of the company behind it says, if we want a more reliable vaccine supply, we need Home-Grown Solutions.

CH: Happier birthdays. Saskatchewan says it will stop flagging some infants as high risk before they're even born, the practise, advocates say, has disproportionately targeted indigenous families and funnelled newborns into the foster care system.

CO: Rudy Awakening. Dominion Voting Systems sues Rudy Giuliani for over a billion dollars for falsely claiming the company helped rig the U.S. election. But the CEO says it's not about the money.

CH: Old Kid on the Block. A University of Alberta PhD student who helped create a 3-D scan of a new fossil, says he was gobsmacked when he finally realised it was a baby tyrannosaur.

CO: End of the road. Residents of one street in Ottawa say they'd rather live on a different street, but they don't mean that they want to move. They mean that they don't want their street to be called Trump Avenue anymore.

CH: And someone forgot to check the sell by date. There is a lot of product placement in the new James Bond movie, but covid has pushed back the release date so many times they have to reshoot scenes with the latest versions of the products. As It Happens, the Tuesday edition, radio that guesses you can't spell 007 without uh, oh.

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Part 1: Canadian vaccine maker says it would be closer to rollout if it had more help from Ottawa

Made in Canada vaccine

Guest: Brad Sorenson

CH: Around the world tonight, there are concerns about covid-19 vaccine distribution, after the European Union has threatened to limit the number of doses that can leave the bloc. For Brad Sorensen, that illustrates how important it is to have a homemade solution. And his company is working on one. He's the CEO of the Canadian biotechnology company Providence Therapeutics, which is working on an MRNA vaccine. Today, it announced that it had started giving doses to volunteers in human clinical trials of its vaccine. We reached Brad Sorensen in Calgary.

CO: Brad, what is happening in Toronto today with your clinical trials?

BRAD SORENSON: Today, we announced that we've initiated our phase one clinical trial in Toronto with our messenger RNA covid-19 vaccine. Actually, we started dosing volunteers last week and we're well into that recruitment for that trial now. And we expect to complete it in a couple of months and be ready to go into phase two in May.

CO: And so how soon might you be able to get through the different phases and get to production of a vaccine that Canadians might be getting?

BS: If everything goes smoothly, we should be able to finish the clinical trial process this year and be able to be rolling out commercial vaccines to Canadians by early, early 2022.

CO: And this would be a covid vaccine, something that would be for the virus we're now dealing with.

BS: Yes. If you're familiar with the with the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccines that, you know, the Canadian government is trying to acquire and had a little bit of challenges, same class of vaccine goes after the spike protein. We anticipate having the same, you know, 95 percent plus effective rate. We hope that our vaccine will we'll have a better safety profile. And, of course, we'll have security to supply because the vaccine will be made in Canada.

CO: Can we just go back to when you began discussing or trying to discuss this with the federal government because back in late spring, you were trying to get the federal government to respond to your submission to a proposal to begin to get going on this. And at one point you were saying you couldn't even get them to return your calls. How much support have you had from Ottawa with your project?

BS: We ultimately got two funding grants from the government. One was through an organisation called NGen, and that was a grant that allowed us to purchase some equipment. And we got that partnership with another company called Northern RNA so that we could start building up manufacturing. And that was actually focussed on the raw inputs, the raw materials that are needed to make messenger RNA vaccines. Most of those raw inputs are sourced out of Asia. And so we wanted to make sure we had security of supply. So we began that process. And so we got about three and a half million dollars for that. And then we also got four point seven dollars million from the National Research Council to sponsor our phase one trial. So it helps. I'm grateful for what we got. We need a lot more. And hopefully with the success that we've had in, you know, getting into the clinic and we're going to demonstrate some good clinical data in the coming months, you know, with the Canadian government realising that, you know, there are some supply challenges that, you know, they'll realise the importance of having a Canadian supplier.

CO: And so just going back to that, because the proposal you submitted in the spring was a request for 35 million dollars that was going to allow you to begin first stage human trials, which is what you are now starting here in January, February. So how did you receive that? Had the federal government supported you, then how much faster would you have been having this made in Canada solution?

BS: When we approached the government we were two months behind Moderna.

CO: Really? So if they had responded to you, where would you be right now?

BS: You know, if we would have had support, we could have advanced our program. I don't know if we would have advanced at the exact pace of Moderna. I mean, they got a billion dollars. We weren't asking for a billion dollars, but we wouldn't be talking about phase one right now. We'd be talking about phase three and rolling out vaccines to Canadians.

CO: I know you're quite happy that you're starting this now and you're getting this rolling. But how frustrating is it for you that you could have been that solution so much earlier?

BS: You know, nobody has dealt with a pandemic before, you know, so I'm careful to you know, I'm I am frustrated. You know, we've had a consistent message. You know, we've said that they're going to experience, you know, challenges, supply challenges. We said, youu know, that if you thought getting PPE was difficult, wait till you're trying to deal with the vaccine. And we're seeing that now. You can expect, you know, the host nations or, you know, whether it's the European Union or the U.S. to spend billions and billions of dollars to fast track a vaccine and then export that vaccine. It's unreasonable expectations. You know, we've been saying we need to have our own our own capacity here in Canada from the beginning. And, you know, obviously, MRNA was validated. I mean, they went out and they attempted to pre-purchase a huge sum of MRNA vaccines. So, you know, for what they got, you know, and what they were committing to pre purchasing. We weren't asking for a lot to be able to build up capacity here. That's the frustrating part. But I don't even know if it got to the decision makers. You know, it was like when we were trying to do it, it was going into a black hole. You know, we did everything we could, we talked to the federal government, we talked to provincial governments. We talked to everybody that we could hope that would listen to us. And at the end of the day, you know, come around late summer, early fall, we just we stopped trying and we started putting our effort and saying, well, we're just going to focus on what we're doing and we'll let the data speak for itself and we'll get into the clinic and we'll let that speak for itself. And that's what we're doing.

CO: And you're manufacturing this in Calgary, is that right?

BS: Yep. Yeah, we actually we started our manufacturing in Toronto at Sunnybrook Research Institute, but we just it's not a large enough facility for us to take it to the next stage. So we did all of our phase one in our phase two vaccines in that facility. And now we're in the process of transferring that manufacturing from Toronto to Calgary and building up the capacity in Calgary.

CO: We heard today that the European Union is threatening to stop any sales of European made vaccines or any delivery to other countries before they've given the vaccine to citizens in Europe. The United States has made similar threats. How important do you think it is to have what you're offering, which is a Canadian made homemade solution?

BS: I would be stunned if we do not hear from the federal government next week. I mean, it would just, there's no other way I could describe it. If we don't hear from them next week, you know, let's call back and have another interview, because it would, I think, create national outrage. We've got an opportunity to solve our problem and not only solve our problem, but contribute to solving the worldwide problem. Instead of competing for scarce resource and trying to buy our way up the queue, we can add to capacity. And we can help solve the problem.

CO: I think you may have already contributed to some national outrage in this interview, Mr. Sorenson. Thanks for speaking with us.

BS: All the best.

CO: Bye bye.

BS: Bye.bye

CH: Brad Sorenson is the CEO of Providence Therapeutics. He spoke to us from Calgary and you can find more on that story on our webpage at CBC.ca/AIH.

[Music: pop music]

Dominion lawsuit

Guest: John Poulos

CH: As the dust of Donald Trump's presidency begins to settle, a fair amount of it appears to be settling on Rudy Giuliani. For months his, has been one of the loudest voices making baseless claims about a rigged election and widespread voter fraud. And now one of Mr Giuliani's favourite targets is hitting back. This week, Dominion Voting Systems announced a one point three billion dollar lawsuit against the former president's personal attorney, accusing him of defamation in his dissemination of, "the big lie". The suit also alleges that because of Rudy Giuliani's false claims, Dominion employees have been subjected to death threats and harassment. John Poulos is Dominion's Canadian CEO. We reached him in Toronto.

CO: Mr. Poulos, Rudy Giuliani has been making these claims pretty much incessantly since November, since just after the election. Why did you decide it was time to sue now?

JOHN POULOS: Well, Mr. Giuliani has repeatedly made claims that he's unwilling to take to court. And so we felt that we had no choice but to file suit as it is really the only course of action, as a private company, that we have to hold purveyors of disinformation to account.

CO: What have you already done to try and stop, not just Mr. Giuliani, but others from making these outrageous claims about the Dominion voting systems?

JP: Well, from our standpoint, election concern during any election, the first course of action really is in the court system that candidates have available to them and of course, recounts, which is exactly what was done throughout the United States. If you take the case of Georgia, for example, they had five million paper ballots cast on our system. Those five million ballots were counted three times. So that really is the first step into providing transparency and demonstrating accuracy to voters. The second is obviously court challenges that candidates have, which in our case, Mr. Giuliani did not make the allegations that he has been making and various media outlets in a courtroom. And so really, in the absence of that, we felt we had no choice but to bring all of those allegations into a process where there are rules for evidence and how evidence is disclosed and weighed.

CO: And I know you've been trying to explain this in terms of these voting machines, not only, didn't but can't do what they claim to have done, which is to somehow flip votes. But just how coocoo some of the claims have been that your company is somehow, that it was started in Venezuela by Hugo Chavez, that you have Cuban money. The whole thing is so outrageous. How do you defend Dominican systems against that kind of claim?

JP: It's an excellent question. The claims are so demonstrably false in each of all of our states where our technology is used, a voter is holding a piece of paper that they review that accurately depicts their choices. They cast that securely. And those ballots are what is being recounted by hand in over a thousand different jurisdictions. So usually that's where the story ends and people understand that the count was accurate. But the fact that the claims continue to be made, claims that are, as you say, absolutely crazy. In the fact that I'm not Venezuelian and I didn't create the company in Venezuela, I was just trying to help blind people vote privately on a paper ballot. These claims are so crazy that they absolutely need to be taken to court to have any kind of hope for voters to regain trust in the transparency of the system.

CO: You mentioned the Dominion voting systems was something that you developed in your basement. It was a system that would help blind people vote. So I just, I don't know. I mean, do you feel sometimes you've entered into some alternate reality?

JP: That's a great way of putting it. I feel like that almost on a daily basis over the last several months. And these types of claims would damage any type of election, even if it had no technology, because essentially they're making completely false claims, yet they're repeating them so often and with such conviction that a good number of voters who are very upset believe it. And it's a very dangerous precedent.

CO: So, your lawsuit is one point three billion dollars, but you've already issued several cease and desist letters to Mr. Giuliani, also to Sidney Powell. That are weeks, if not months old, all of the warnings, all of the threats of a suit haven't stopped them at all, in fact they've accelerated them, including those of the My Pillow chief executive, Mike Lindell. So why do you think that you'll actually be able to do anything with this lawsuit?

JP: Well, in a court of law, as you know, there are very well established rules on evidence and how evidence must be disclosed and how it is heard and what we're really seeing is a lack of disclosing the evidence. If you look at some of the media appearances, some of these actors have actually gone on TV and say, I am going to release this information tonight when I exit the show. And then, of course, it isn't sent. It isn't disclosed. And therein lies the problem.

CO: And I've seen many of those interviews and you're talking about most of them on Fox News or some of the other networks, the conservative networks. And so as you've been watching this over the months, this company, you started. When you watched this happen, when you watched this roll out in the U.S. media. How does it feel to be sort of sitting on your couch watching this kind of news?

JP: Well, it's obviously deeply disturbing in so many different ways. We have three hundred roughly employees and their families that have staked their name, their reputation and their livelihood on the company and through 18 years have worked very hard in building our reputation. In addition to that, we still have employees. Believe it or not, they don't feel safe returning to their home. Their homes are being scouted by people and taking pictures. They're receiving threatening text messages. So it really is very difficult to quantify and accurately describe the real effect that this has on real people. You know, this type of disinformation has real life consequences.

CO: Mr. Poulos, we will be following this story. And I appreciate speaking with you today. Thank you.

JP: Thank you for the opportunity.

CH: John Poulos is the founder and CEO of Dominion Voting Systems. We reached him in Toronto.

[Music: guitar instrumental]

Trump Avenue

Guest: Bonnie Bowering

CH: Riley Brockington has been an Ottawa city councillor for years and pretty much since the beginning of his time in office, he's been receiving complaints about a street in his riding. It's called Trump Avenue. This weekend, the councillor sent a bulletin out to the street's residents asking whether they support a name change. Bonnie Bowering got that bulletin. We reached her at home on Trump Avenue.

CO: Bonnie, where do you stand on changing the name of your street, Trump Avenue?

BONNIE BOWERING: Well, I support this initiative. I think the time is right to not have a street named in Ottawa, Canada's capital, for a now former president of the United States, a president who left in disgrace, as we all know.

CO: Now, you moved on to Trump Avenue a dozen years ago, right?

BB: Yes.

CO: So when did the name start to bother you?

BB: From the time I moved into the house. [chuckling] You know, I had said you can never choose the name of your street. You're kind of stuck with it. We wanted this house, but at the time, you know, Trump wasn't a politician or into politics. But I knew that the street was named for him because the area is Central Park and all the street names have New York City names like Manhattan, Staten, Bloomingdale, Trump.

CO: Oh dear.

BB: So it was definitely for Donald Trump, who, of course, we all know from New York Trump Tower. It was a big name for New York.

CO: [chuckles]What an interesting theme for an Ottawa neighbourhood.

BB: It is. And so when the city considers changing the name, you know, I assume it'll still be with the New York theme.

CO: OK, so now a lot of people who live on Trump Avenue started to not like it when he became the president...[interrupted]

BB: No, it was before during the primaries.

CO: Okay, that's when many people. But I think over the past four years, I think... [overlapping voices]

BB: It got worse.

CO: Clearly and so are the people on Trump Avenue who don't want the name changed?

BB: I don't know. I haven't canvassed my neighbours, but our city councillor, he's the one who has taken this initiative right now. So he left notes at everybody's doors to say that he was wanting to start this initiative, that step one, to determine how many people living on the street would support this. He needed over 50 percent. So that's in progress. Now, I don't know how he's going to, in fact, get a vote or whatever he's doing. And then if there's enough, there will be a committee set up working with the city to bring other street names forward for consideration. And the residents would have a say in what the final name would be. But I imagine, you know, the city would be the ones to make that final decision.

CO: In an interview this morning, Councillor Brockington, who just mentioned, he told CBC's Robyn Bresnahan that he's been receiving complaints for years. That's probably why he was putting those notices on your door. But he wanted to put off this conversation, he says, until after Donald Trump was out of office. So let's listen to what he had to say this morning.

RILEY BROCKINGTON: Why would I want to cause any retribution against Canada for simply asking my residents what their preference is of a street name. Could have been, tariffs against our country. I know it sounds extreme, but I thought, you know what? Let's just wait till he's gone. And I think events earlier this month, January 6th, Capitol, that's certainly when a number of people, who I hadn't heard from before, eventually came and said, all right, we really do need to look at this. I said, you know what? OK, I'll commit to some point this month, leading this for you.

CO: So, Bonnie, why do you think it took an insurrection in Washington, DC to get people to actually say to your councillor, maybe it's time to change the name?

BB: It might have been more that he has left office, that his term is over. He's not the sitting president anymore. And that might have been enough in itself. But the fact that he incited an insurrection and questioned democratic election results really made it that much more important, significant to take action now.

CO: Now, if you if this does happen, do you have any ideas what name you'd like to have? The street called?

BB: I looked up like prominent New York City street names and found out most of them are already in use in the Ottawa and Ottawa area. We're a big city now and a lot of the street names in New York are numbers. Fifth Avenue. Being the most significant, Weel, Ottawa already has a Fifth Avenue, so I think, you know, the city will do due diligence in looking at various names and come up with some suitable street names for us to consider.

CO: So we have your vote for the name, but that means changing all your mail. You know that? All your addresses.

BB: I know, but it's like when you move. That's the least of your worries to do your change of address.

CO: But, do you get a lot of responses when you mail something or tell someone, oh, I live on Trump Avenue. Do people react to that?

BB: Yeah, people smirk and think it's funny. And, you know, I always say yes. And it is Donald Trump that it's named for. So it sort of had a bit of humour through the years.

CO: Is it still as funny as it was earlier?

BB: Oh, people feel sorry for me now? Oh, sorry. Yes, yes. But if the name can be changed. Yes, I'm very supportive of that. And I think it will happen because the city is taking the initiative now.

CO: We'll leave it there. Bonnie, thanks.

BB: OK, thank you.

CH: That was Bonnie Bowering at her home on Trump Avenue, in Ottawa.

[Music: James bond theme]

James Bond brand

CH: A well-dressed sleazebag fights villains who want to blow up the world, in exotic locations, deployes cool gadgets and has sex. That's the James Bond brand.

CH: And another part of the Bond brand is brands. He drives Aston Martins, he shoots a Walther PPK. He wears expensive designer formalwear because as all secret agents know, the best outfit for hand-to-hand combat on a jet ski is a Tom Ford tuxedo. That makes Bond movies great opportunities for product placement. Companies pay loads of money to have 007, wear their clothes and watches and use their gizmos. But now, like the Trek briefcase in From Russia with Love, it's blown up in the producer's faces. The latest Bond movie, No Time to Die, was filmed in 2019. It was supposed to come out in April 2020, but because of covid, its release was pushed back again and again. And last week, MGM announced it would finally come out in theatres on October 8th. In terms of the product placement, that is unfashionably late because they finished shooting two years ago, a bunch of the products placed in the movie are now outdated. So according to a Bond insider, presumably M or Q, they're going to have to re-edit and reshoot a whole bunch of scenes for the October release to include the latest gear, just to satisfy their sponsors. That is an expensive and inconvenient hassle. But really, anyone familiar with James Bond knows, you have to be careful who you get in bed with.

[Music: Reggae music]

Part 2: Saskatchewan birth alerts

Saskatchewan birth alerts

Guest: Jamesy Patrick

CH: This week, Saskatchewan became the latest province to dispense with so-called birth alerts. Birth alerts are touted as a tool to ensure child safety, but according to indigenous activists, their allies and virtually all available data, they're unevenly applied. Alerts are issued when hospital staff believe an unborn baby may be at risk. They can be sent out without parents' knowledge, and they routinely result in newborns being taken into custody. For the women, Jamesy Patrick works with birth alerts have been traumatic. Ms. Patrick is the acting executive director of Sanctum Care Group in Saskatoon and a lawyer who has represented several clients in the wake of apprehensions.

CO: Jamesy, what does it mean to you and the women you work with, to have Saskatchewan finally cancel this practise?

JAMESY PATRICK: Well, the birth alert practise and cancelling it, I think is long overdue. And I think that this message has been conveyed to our provincial government for some time. So to have it finally come to an end is exciting. But of course, it raises other questions about, you know, what services are going to be available to support these mums. So I think we see the birth alert as being really the very first step. And in all fairness, probably the easiest step in starting this process.

CO: Can you give us a sense of what the birth alerts were doing and why they were such a problem?

JAMESY PATRICK: Well, birth alerts, in my view, really are an extension of colonisation and our residential school system and then onto sixties scoop and now our child protection system. And so what we saw happening in Saskatchewan was between 2015 and 2019, for example, 80 percent of the birth alerts were attached to indigenous women. And the result was that when women showed up to the hospital, they may not even know that they were in fact birth alerted. And so the system starts from a position of marginalisation, stigma, and those women are then faced with trying to kind of unravel that approach that, you know, was being placed upon them when they enter into those systems.

CO: And how often did those birth alerts lead to the child being apprehended by the child protection system?

JAMESY PATRICK: It's the majority. So a birth alert typically is applied when a woman has either had previous involvement with Child Protective Services or maybe a healthcare professional has put an alert on the file. And so most of those women would have their child apprehended from hospital. And if their child wasn't apprehended, they certainly are starting from a place of really being marginalised in the system, which discourages continued access to health care, for example.

CO: So is it possible that some women wouldn't even get the prenatal services they need for fear of being flagged for a birth alert?

JAMESY PATRICK: Well, those are the stories that we've seen with the women we support. So we, for example, had a woman show up to Sanctum 1.5, which is a home in our core community in Saskatoon, who had not interfaced with any prenatal service because she knew she had been birth alerted and fear of that birth alert. So what it ends up doing, is women are either fearful that the birth alert will be placed upon them and then their child would be potentially apprehended or they're fearful of, you know, interfacing with anyone because they know that they've already been alerted and they feel that they're going to be treated differently in the system and they are treated differently in the system.

CO: Why is it that the child protection system is so inclined to apprehend the children from these mums? Why does it happen so often? Why isn't there an alternative to that?

JAMESY PATRICK: Well, one of the gaps that we've seen is there there isn't really prenatal services that are directed to women that interface homelessness, potentially drug use, who may be HIV positive or face other challenges in the system. And so child protection services typically, doesn't get involved until a baby is actually born. And so we see this gap, between that point of becoming pregnant and having baby, where services are not being offered to some of our most vulnerable or at risk women in the community. So we know that if we had those preventative services earlier on, we wouldn't need to have Child and Family Services become involved with that mum at the point of delivery because those supports would already be in place. And the present system and you see this kind of cascade effect, so if mum has a baby at a hospital and there's the birth alert and social services becomes involved, if that baby's apprehended, you now have a postpartum mum who's been disconnected from her infant, is unable to breastfeed, who's unable to do bonding. And then mum has to enter the court system and the justice system kind of steps in and she's now in a position of having to fight to have access to that child, and so that was the place that the presumption was placed that she was not good enough. And then there's a reverse onus, if you would have it, that she's now having to prove to the system that she can. And we need to reverse that script completely.

CO: Yikes, it just compounds all the problems, doesn't it?

JAMESY PATRICK: Absolutely.

CO: Is there any particular story, an encounter with a mom that has really stayed with you?

JAMESY PATRICK: Yeah. So there's this was prior to coming to Sanctum, but certainly most of the moms that we work with here have had a birth alert and they've had them historically. They have other children in care. And we've seen these incredible outcomes. So we've worked with, you know, fifty four women in two years. And of those fifty four moms, only two children have ended up in care, in foster care. The other moms are either parenting and they've also had additional children who were otherwise in the system return to their care. But the one mom that in particular stands out to me, and it was prior to coming here, was a mom where I represented her in court. And she had been through this birth alert process five times. And on the sixth time was kind of her breaking point. And between that fifth and sixth baby, she had connected herself to supports, she'd obtained employment, she had done all those things that she thought would mitigate the need for a birth alert. Yet she still ended up with a birth alert. And what resulted, with her, is that she kind of, she lost hope in the system and she relapsed. She was unable to go through that court system because she was exhausted by having to prove herself as a mother. And she eventually did commit suicide. And so that's the reality of the women that we work with. They are facing so many barriers, to add a birth alert on top of that has had the opposite effect of what people have thought it might be doing in our community. So it is the first step to start to correct this history. But again, the big question is going to be for those ministries to start having conversations with indigenous organisations that interface with these moms and communities to start making sure that what we're putting in place is effective for moms to have the best support in their pregnancy.

CO: Jamesy, is just extraordinary what you're describing and so traumatic. I'm glad you and the others of Sanctum care group are there for those women. Thank you for speaking with us.

JAMESY PATRICK: Oh, you're more than welcome. Take care.

CO: Bye bye.

CH: Jamesy Patrick is the acting executive director of Sanctum Care Group, which works with women whose children are at risk of being apprehended. We reached her in Saskatoon.

[Music: Guitar instrumental]

Baby tyrannosaur

Guest: Mark Powers

CH: When you think of a tyrannosaur, you picture Jeff Goldblum heroically leading an angry T-Rex away from the children in Jurassic Park. Or maybe that's just me, I'm just always picturing Jeff Goldblum. Anyway, you're not picturing an adorable, slightly fluffy dinosaur, but that's what researchers say a baby tyrannosaur looks like and for the first time they have proof, two fossils. The findings were published yesterday in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. Mark Powers is a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta and one of the authors of the study. We reached him in Edmonton.

CO: Mark, what was it like to finally see this 3D scan of your little guy?

MARK POWERS: Well, it was really exciting and kind of blew our minds at the moment, just because we haD the suspicion that it did look like a tyrannosaur. But until you can blow it up to a size that you can clearly see all the details, it doesn't really jump out at you. And so when we did, it was like, it was, indeed a wow moment. And just how much like the adults it looked, even by being just an embryo, was shocking to us.

CO: Why is it so unusual to be able to see the baby or they guess this is an unborn baby, unhatched baby of a tyrannosaur?

MP: Yes, so the big reason that it's hard to find material like this is that there tends to be a bias towards larger animals here in North America. So the sedimentary environments are basically all the sediments being deposited from the mountains to the west, running out towards the inland sea, were typically fast flowing or floodplain deposits. And so they tend to trap larger animals and destroy or transport the smaller material quite a ways.

CO: Can you just describe what evidence you found of these baby dinosaurs?

MP: Yeah. So the main source of evidence comes from both the claw and the jaw. The claw that we found, it has a lot of porous material or porous surface on the claw. And that kind of indicates that it's not fully ossified or turned to bone just yet. And another additional source of evidence is on the back end of the claw or where it would articulate with the toe bones it has what we call a cartilage cone. So it's sort of this capsule of empty space or this vacuole in the back end, which indicates too that it was still receiving nutrients and developing. So it wasn't at the endpoint, as it were. And with the jaw, we have similar indicators, but they mostly come from the teeth. We actually have a few teeth that are incredibly small and they appear just like little tiny triangles with very small roots, which indicates to us, based on other embryos that were described or found, that the jaw belongs to a developing individual. And those teeth would have been the first generation of teeth that had ever received.

CO: Wow. And how tiny are they?

MP: The claw was about one centimetre long. And for an embryo that's quite large, then we're going to the jaw, the jaw is only about three centimetres and it's not quite complete. It's missing just a little bit of the back end of it. And when we estimated the size of the individual, it would have belonged to, the jaw belongs to an individual that was about 76 centimetres long or the same size as a small dog. And the claw belonged to an individual that was probably about 110 centimetres. So a little bit larger and possibly closer to the hatching stage.

CO: As you point out, these are fairly large for embryos. And so how big are these, would these babies have become? Had they lived.

MP: Yes. Or if they had made it to hatching and growing up their full life, our largest specimens of Albertosaurus as the first example, have gotten up to about 10 metres long. So it's about 33 feet, something like that in length and probably weighed between two and three tons. And the daspletosaurus was heavier built and probably a little bit shorter. So probably maybe nine, nine to 10 metres in total length and probably around three to three and a half tons when it fully grew.

CO: So huge and fierce. And yet the images of the babies, they did have cute babies. [laughter]

MP: They did yeah, it's kind of like if you make a chicken look really awkward, throw a tail on it and give it some teeth.

CO: Where did you discover these dinosaurs?

MP: So I'll start with the jaw because it actually was discovered back in 1980 or the 1980s anyways in Montana. And it was discovered by Jack Horner, who is the consultant palaeontologist on the Jurassic Park films. And Phil was with him or at least working with him at the time. And so Phil took the jaw up to Canada and he had it sitting in his cabinet up until just two years ago. So it was a back project or a side project for him that he hadn't gotten around to. And when we found the toe claw working here in Alberta, it's actually the lead author, Greg Funston, came to Phil with this toe claw, knew it was of an embryonic specimen, but couldn't identify of what, and so Phil was the one that actually proposed that it might be a Tyrannosaur claw and then also then mentioned the jaw that he had in his cabinet.

CO: You mentioned someone named Phil. Who is Phil?

MP: So Phil Currie is sort of like Canada's superstar palaeontologist. He started his career back in the late 70s and he actually helped to found the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. And he worked there for many, many years until he came up to the University of Alberta in 2005. And he's renowned around the world for his palaeontological works. And he's been to essentially every continent to look for dinosaurs. And he particularly enjoys Alberta and Mongolia for palaeontological research.

CO: Interesting many other comparisons other than for palaeontological research, I would imagine.

MP: Yeah, he loves this paleo. He loves his Dinosaurs. And he's almost like a big kid. He just keeps going and loves what he does.

CO: Now given that you can go back to the locations where these were discovered, is that significant? I mean, might you find more given that this was possibly a breeding ground or an area where the tyrannosaurs were laying their eggs?

MP: Oh, definitely, we have some running hypotheses we're starting with, but we definitely want to investigate further for more embryonic material, as well as trying to see if we can find any eggshell that could be associated to a tyrannosaur as opposed to the other dinosaurs that were in the area. To this day, we have no eggshell that can be positively identified with Tyrannosaurus. And there is the possibility that Tyrannosaurus may have played soft shelled eggs that did not preserve or calcify in the same way as other egg shells.

CO: And from yourself, your own point of view is being a Ph.D. student. What's it like to be part of research and discoveries like this?

MP: I think it's amazing. And kind of going through your graduate degree, you're not sure what projects will end up being a part of. So this project had nothing to do with my thesis itself. But I was included because I have access to using some high tech equipment and I do study theropods. So I had some knowledge in how to identify them and to do certain analyses that we did to estimate the size. So my skills came in handy and I was invited on and I'm extremely grateful to have been. And I think the project is incredibly cool and will have a lot of follow up studies that will benefit from the initial description of these specimens.

CO: Mark, good to talk to you. Thank you.

MP: Yeah, it's great to talk to you, too. Thanks for having me.

CH: Mark Powers is a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta. We reached him in Edmonton.

[Music: upbeat piano]

The Falcon Thief

Guest: Josh Hammer

CH: Sometimes the lengths smugglers will go to transport their goods can really knock your socks off and sometimes it can really knock their socks off, as in the recent case of a man who attempted to sneak 74 Chameleon's through customs in Vienna. The protected lizards were found tucked throughout the man's luggage, including in his socks. That reminded us of Jeffrey Lendrum, a man who egg-celled at eggs-traction. He dedicated his life to the poaching of rare eggs, illegally snatching them,that is not-- not cooking them. From January of last year, here's Carol's conversation with Josh Hammer, author of a book all about Mr. Lendrum's eggs-traordinary criminal career, including his egg smuggling methodology.

JOSH HAMMER: He had a lot of different ways, obviously, he wasn't totally successful at it since he's been arrested five times over the last 30 years. But you also have to ask yourself, how many times did he get away with it? A couple of times when he's been arrested, was kind of really by chance, he acted suspiciously, was taken aside by customs, or in one case, counterterrorism airport officers, made to remove his clothing and then was found to have these sort of a belt or pouch or in one case, adhesive bandages wrapped around his abdomen containing eggs concealed inside.

CO: All right. But if he's I mean, if they're live eggs, they have to stay warm. So is that part of the reason why he kept on his person?

JH: Exactly. it was both for concealment and to keep them warm? Yeah, exactly. He would sometimes do all sorts of opera... he moved the eggs back and forth between his body and an incubator, carrying an incubator, put the incubator in the overhead compartment on a plane. There were lots of different methods, but basically that's correct. You have to keep the eggs from cracking and you have to keep them warm.

CO: These are eggs from vultures, from falcons, from kites. I understand when he was caught in the airport. He had two newly hatched African fish eagle chicks. How is he managing that?

JH: I don't think that was intentional. You know, basically, this required some, you know, some research. He had to figure out exactly when the eggs were laid. And, you know, this has happened on a couple of different occasions to other egg smugglers. A tweet or a chirp gave them away and they were arrested on spot.

CO: And so now he has gone to tremendous lengths, though, to gather these eggs and including a really daring one in Canada. Do you want to tell us something about that?

JH: Yeah, the Canada op, well actually he's been to Canada three times, before he was finally busted. But the most spectacular operation was when he teamed up with an old buddy from the Rhodesian War and the two of them flew to the northern corner of Quebec, to Kuujjuaq, up you near the, I guess, Hudson Bay, and went out into the tundra, flying around looking for these gyrfalcon. When they would find the nest on a cliff Lendrum would attach himself by the cable to the helicopter. The pilot would then lift off, take him, sometimes several hundred thousand feet above a lake, you know, and Lendrum would approach a cliff and then Lendrum would reach over on these areas to snatch the eggs, give a signal and be taken off.

CH: From our archives, that was part of Carol's conversation a year ago with Josh Hammer, author of The Falcon Thief, Mr. Hammer was in Berlin at the time.

[Music: circus music]

Jenga World Record

Guest: Auldin Maxwell

[sound clip of old jenga commercial] Jenga, you take a block from the bottom and you put it on top. You take a block from the middle and you put it on top, it's how you build the tower you just don't stop. You got to build that...[fades out]

CH: Sure, you just take a block from the bottom and you put it on top. In my case, I do that maybe three times before the Jenga column collapses and I run out of the room [pause] crying. But 12 year old Auldin Maxwell of Salmon Arm British Columbia has significantly better hand eye coordination. Auldin didn't stop until he made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for his amazing Jenga skills. No one in the world has stacked more Jenga blocks on top of a single vertical block than he did. He told the CBC how he did it.

AULDIN MAXWELL: OK, so I bought lots of blocks. And I took one and I put it up vertically on the ground and I started to stack a whole bunch more of Jenga blocks on top of that one vertical without anything stabling it.

SARAH PENTON: And how many blocks did you get on top of that one vertical block?

AM: I got 693 Jenga blocks.

SP: 693!

AM: Yes.

SP: How many Jenga sets does that make up?

AM: That makes 14 Jenga sets.

SP: I have to admit, like we have Jenga at our house and like so I just, like how many bricks are in one set?

AM: 54.

SP: OK, so when I'm playing with 54, I get a little stressed. So what was this like for you? With 693 blocks all on that one... Were you nervous? Were you stressed? Like, what was it like.

AM: Oh no. Like I just felt I just felt happy and yes, a lot of nervousness.

SP: And how hard was this to do?

AM: It was pretty hard, it had me do three attempts to actually get all of them on.

SP: Right. So tell me a little bit more about like, I understand that you're really into the Guinness Book of World Records.

AM: Yes, I've been wanting to be in the Guinness Book of World Records since I was six. And I've just had really interest in it because it's something in the world that nobody else can do.

SP: So how does that feel to realise? Because you did this in November, right. And then you just recently got word from Guinness.

AM: Yeah.

SP: Yeah. So what was it like when you found out?

AM: That was awesome! It's funny because my parents came into my room and they were really excited and I thought they won money or something.[laughter] They were really excited. But then they showed me the email that they sent to us. So that was awesome.

SP: Your name is going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records. What does that feel like?

AM: It feels awesome! [laughter]

CH: That was 12 year old Auldin Maxwell feeling awesome in Salmon Arm B.C. He was speaking with Sarah Penton, host of Radio West.

[Music: light guitar]

Part 3: Muslim comedian jailed in India over jokes he didn't even tell, says friend

Indian comedian jailed

Guest: Vishesh Arora

CH: His job is to make people laugh. But what happened to Indian comedian Munawar Faruqui at a gig earlier this month wasn't funny at all. The Muslim Stand-Up comic was arrested before he even started his routine over concerns that he would insult Hindu gods. He's now been held for more than three weeks and his bail has been denied. Vishesh Arora is Munawar Faruqui's friend and tour manager. We reached him in Delhi.

CO: Vishesh, have you had a chance to speak with Munawar in jail?

VISHESH ARORA: Through my legal team, like indirectly, I had a word with him, some days back.

CO: And how is he doing?

VA: He's fine. I just got to know he's fine. And but mentally, he's really like he's really tortured. Like, he told me that the inmates, other inmates, they got to know about what is happening around and they are just abusing him. He is not keeping well with that.

CO: Before we get to what the case actually is, just take us back to what happened. He was, Munawar was going to do a stand up show of comedy on January 1st, what happened as he was getting up to perform that day?

VA: The [inaudible] was supposed to happen at 4:00 p.m. and around 5:30, I got a call from him that the police was taking him. So this is his last call. What happened was he got on stage and there was a mob which came to the venue and they stopped the show in between. And they also asked the audience members that, are they supportive of the content of this comedian? And they were totally supportive because the show hadn't started. And earlier also, he used to do a lot of satire in his content, which, there are references from the political parties in India, their references from the mythology, different religions, Hindu culture, Muslim culture, everything. But he didn't do anything on that day.

CO: He hadn't even started, he wasn't even, hadn't even done anything on stage when this mob demanded that the audience respond to whether they approved of this. But the audience said, yeah, they approve of what is about. Tell us a bit about this group that had shown up to protest against Munawar.

VA: There's a group of people who are supporting this, the religious things, and they have this, preach like these things to other people. And these are members of the same group. And there are a lot of groups in India right now working similar groups.

CO: These are Hindu nationalists.

VA: Hindu nationalists, like conservative minded people.

CO: Very much supported by your present government, your federal government?

VA: Yeah, most probably.

CO: And the man who is leading this is actually the son of a local BJP politician, is that right?

VA: There is a local politician, right? The son of a minister there, a regional minister. So most probably what we know about this is, that he wanted to limelight this act for election ticket because he wanted some limelight into the politics so that he can get election ticket in the next elections.

CO: So you think he was just using Munawar and his show in order to try to get support, drum up support, amongst those who support this Hindu nationalism? What did he accused Munawar of doing?

VA: He accused him of doing jokes on Hindu deities and Hindu mythology. But actually, he didn't do any of that. And it was because Munawar released a video in April 2020 from which they got offended, all these guys. And they came to the show so that they can take hold of him and take any evidence if he does any of their jokes. But Munawar didn't do anything that time.

CO: But he has in the past made comedy that included jokes about Hinduism?

va: No, it was satire like Munawar takes references from mythology, from political figures, with Hindu mythology or Muslim mythology, any of that. When our text satire, all of that, nothing was objectionable. But, here in India, what is happening is people can't even listen to the name of a god of their like the God of their own religion. They can't listen to the name on radio. So that's the scene.

CO: He was then arrested. And what has he been charged with?

VA: He's charged with a section called, Section 295A, which is hurting religious sentiments of people here. So that's the main section.

CO: But I understand the police have actually admitted that there is no evidence against him, that he never even said anything on stage.

VA: Yeah But like till the trials that have started, like what, is the purpose of these people, the people who like to call out Munawar would like these people just want to harass him. Inside them, they know that they will lose the case after a while. But till that time, it's slow, the judiciary is slow here, like it takes time. So it will take like two, three, four months from now to get out of all this. So this is just harassment.

CO: And he will get out of it because there's no evidence, but meanwhile, you say he's in he's in prison, is in jail with people who are harassing him because of these claims that somehow he insulted Hindu deities. Right?

VA: Exactly.

CO: Just in general, there is Stand-Up Comedy, Comic Acts in India. They've been very popular for a long time. This is a big tradition there. So but, I understand a lot of a lot of comedians are very worried about making any jokes, political jokes of any kind, making any kind of satire. Is that the case?

VA: Exactly. Because what is happening is the other comedians. I'm also managing tours for other comedians as well. So there are a lot of comedians who have just cancelled like a lot of shows. So they are also worried about this content. And they have cancelled like a lot of shows with me recently because they are worried that they'll do a show in a smaller city and they might face these challenges, also. So they just asked me to cancel some shows in these smaller cities.

CO: And so they're cancelling their acts because of fear that they might be arrested in the same way and as Munawar.

VA: And a lot of them, a lot of big comedians call me every single day to take a bit of the case, like what is happening and when will he come out and everything.

CO: Vishesh sounds like it's a really rough time for Munawar. I hope it all turns out well for him, but I appreciate you telling us the story tonight. Thank you.

VA: Thank you. Thank you so much.

CH: Vishesh Arora is Munawar Faruqui's friend and tour manager. We reached him in Delhi, India. For more on the story, go to our website, CBC.ca/AIH.

[Music: jazz with snapping]

Agent Orange court cases

Guest: Susan Hammond

CH: This week, a French court is hearing about the damage Agent Orange did to so many people in Vietnam, a French Vietnamese woman named Tran To Nga is seeking damages from 14 pharmaceutical giants, including Bayer. Agent Orange was a weapon used by U.S. troops during the Vietnam War it contains a dangerous contaminant known as dioxin. American military planes would douse the jungles of North Vietnam and its orange fumes. It was supposed to target North Vietnamese troops, but it left millions of civilians with rare illnesses and birth defects. Back in August 2012, As It Happens, spoke with Susan Hammond about the cleanup of Agent Orange that had just started in Vietnam. She's the former director of the War Legacies Project, and she talked about the chemical’s impact on people's health.

SUSAN HAMMOND: We don't have a long term assessment of the impact here on our own veterans, that many of these illnesses, that dioxin likely causes are rare and take a long term to manifest. And we also do not know whether there are long term epigenetic impacts, meaning that the dioxin has caused some types of changes within the human genetic structure to have longer term generational impacts. It's very difficult to study the impacts of dioxin on the human body. You have to do epidemiological studies and find a population who has been exposed. And then, of course, there's a lot of confounding factors.

PETER ARMSTRONG: There's still a split between the governments of the United States and Vietnam about the health effects of Agent Orange. I had thought the science behind this was pretty comprehensive. Why is it that the two governments are in such a split on this?

SH: That's a tricky question as well, because though science has shown that dioxin causes many cancers and birth defects in animal studies, for instance, when it comes to human studies, at least for the birth defects, there's a lot of evidence leading towards that. But not that, you know, smoking gun proof that perhaps the U.S. government is looking for. But we have to remember that many children of Vietnam veterans also have diseases and birth defects that they believe are caused by their father's exposure. And their concerns are also not being addressed by the U.S. government. So it's a difficult thing. The U.S. right now, their focus. They will say that they will provide support for disability programmes in Vietnam regardless of cause. And we are, of course, hoping that in pushing for that amount of funding to be increased.

PA: In closing, the simple fact that the cleanup has begun, that the project is underway. What does that tell us about the relationship between the United States and Vietnam?

SH: It tells us that it's reached a point where some of these very sensitive and difficult issues from the war are able to be discussed and then at least addressed to some extent. I mean, there will be more discussions. The U.S. and Vietnam, for instance, meet each other every year, usually in September, to talk about this particular issue. And that is something that couldn't have happened five or six years ago. So there is open discussion now. They're working together on the cleanup. And, of course, we hope that it will lead to other areas of this long term legacy, particularly the human health aspects.

CH: From our archives, that was Susan Hammond speaking with, As It Happens, guest host Peter Armstrong.

[Music: guitar instrumental]

Run for the performing arts

Guest: Daniel Mills

CH: It took him 89 hours over five months, but Daniel Mills ran every street in Kamloops, B.C. That is 938 kilometres of asphalt, the equivalent of 22 marathons. Daniel Mills is the executive director of the Kamloops Symphony. He began his comprehensive run to raise money for the symphony in August and finished it this past weekend. Mr. Mills talked to the CBC about his ambitious fundraiser and said that even for a guy who's completed Ironman events, it was no easy feat.

DANIEL MILLS: It definitely takes quite a bit of training and the right mental state to complete that particular with the course that I had to complete in this case. So definitely still an event.

SHELLEY JOYCE: Are you sore?

DM: I was a bit sore afterwards. I've had worse, but I definitely was feeling it.

SJ: What was the terrain like? What kind of terrain did you tackle?

DM: So in this case quite a few hills, of course, but I think more importantly is that I don't think I ran in a straight line for more than four blocks. As you can imagine, trying to cover every street basically means turning constantly. So I don't know how many turns I had to do, but that was more of a challenge then natural hills, but definitely an interesting course for sure.

SJ: So you ran every single street in Kamloops?

DM: Yes, every single city operated road. So there are a few exceptions, of course, within that. But basically everything, yes.

SJ: Did you come across any, like, fabulous hidden houses or crazy dogs or, you know, what was it like?

DM: Lots of houses for sure that I never knew existed, especially ones at the end of some cul de sacs. And yes, there are lots of dogs in Kamloops. Of course, that's not a surprise, but the age old rivalry of dogs versus runners is definitely prevalent. And I think pretty much every dog in Kamloops has probably barked at me at this point. They ran by but and had some fun stereo effects going on, especially up in Barnhartvale when I was up there having, you know, dogs across valleys barking at me as I ran by.

SJ: Would you ever want to take anything like this on again or been there, done that?

DM: I think it definitely is. Open the doors of what's possible because, you know, before I was used to my regular route. So, yes, yes. I'm not completely put off. It was a lot of work in terms of logistics. And so I think I'm ready for a little bit of less work to go into my run planning for the next little while. But eventually I'm sure I'll find a new challenge.

CH: That was Daniel Mills speaking with Shelly Joyce, host of DAYBREAK Kamloops in B.C.

[Music: bass sounds]

Smallpox vaccine history

Guest: Sam Kean

CH: When scientists announced they had created a vaccine for covid-19 in record time, there was jubilation. Then there was frustration as governments around the world fumbled the rollout. And that got Sam Kean thinking, how did they do it with the world's first vaccine? At the end of the 18th century, there was a smallpox pandemic. And when British Doctor Edward Jenner came up with a vaccine, it was a lifesaver. The only problem was it was nearly impossible to transport across oceans. But Spain had a solution. Orphans. Sam Kean wrote a piece for the Atlantic entitled '22 orphans gave up everything to distribute the world's first vaccine'. We reached him in Washington, D.C.

CO: Sam, what did you first think when you discovered that Spain used orphans as kind of human mules to transport the smallpox vaccine?

SAM KEAN: Well, I write a lot about science and history, so I can't say I was surprised that something like this happens. People definitely had different ethical standards about medical experiments back then, but it was still pretty shocking to see and it was sort of hard to work through what exactly to think about it, in that it's something we obviously would not do nowadays. But their goal was to try to save millions of people's lives. So it was a sort of a tricky situation.

CO: Right. Why was it so difficult to transport the vaccine?

SK: Basically, they didn't have modern refrigeration, modern infrastructure. And without being able to keep a virus cold, as we're seeing now, the virus dies. You have to throw doses away, things like that. And they had the ability to transport vaccine doses within Europe. The problem was when they had to get it across the ocean to colonies in North and South America, the virus just wasn't able to live on those long, harsh ocean voyages. By the time they got here, it basically didn't work anymore and they couldn't vaccinate people.

CO: Can you just tell us a bit about how they manufactured the smallpox vaccine?

Basically what they did is there was a related disease called cowpox that cattle got. And it had been observed in England that people who got cowpox did not come down with smallpox because they related diseases. So if you got cowpox, you were immune to smallpox. What they would do is they would take someone with cowpox and you'd get a little sore, a little fluid filled sore on your arm or your leg. They would pop that. Then they would take the fluid that came out and they would scratch it into another person's leg or arm. And that second person would get cowpox and they would be immune to smallpox. What doctors would try to do is they would take that fluid and they would put it on a piece of thread or a piece of lint or something. And you could get it to, as I said, a different town or maybe, you know, across the English Channel or something. But for long distance travel, it would dry out and die usually.

CO: Just first of all, so people know cowpox, I presume, is not as awful as getting smallpox.

SK: No, it's not nearly as bad. You get some sores, you might have a little scar or something like that, but it's generally not deadly and nearly not as bad as smallpox. Even the people who survive smallpox were usually scarred, often left blind. It was an ugly, ugly disease.

CO: And it was everywhere the smallpox had infected. Well, I guess with settlers, invaders, they had spread the smallpox around the globe. Right? At this point.

SK: They had. Yeah, even in Europe and Asia, where it had been around for a long time, it was still killing lots and lots of people. And in the Americas, where people did not have much immunity to it, it was pretty much apocalyptic. In some cases. You had half of all people dying in outbreaks. It was very, very bad there.

CO: OK, so enter the orphans. How did Spain use the orphans to transport the vaccine then?

SK: Basically, they got a couple dozen orphans, twenty two ages three to nine. And right before they left on the voyage across the Atlantic, they gave two of the boys cowpox. About nine or ten days later, they developed a sore on their arm, at which point a doctor on board would pop the sore and he would transfer it to the next two boys in the chain. And they were hoping that with a bit of luck and if they had winds that were favourable, they could cross the ocean and there would still be two boys at the end that still had sores. They could hop off the ship, land those sores and start vaccinating people in the Americas.

CO: And were they successful?

SK: They were. They barely made it. They got to Venezuela and they only had one sore left on the arm of a single boy. But that was enough.

CO: How many people got vaccinated from that boy?

SK: The numbers do vary and it's a little hard to tell. But in the hundreds of thousands in North and South America overall, because once they had a good base of people around Caracas, they started spreading both down into South America and then across, up into Mexico and vaccinating people there. Then the head doctor actually from the west coast of Mexico took off, ran over to the Philippines and China and started vaccinating people there.

CO: Do you have any idea what became of those orphans?

SK: We don't know, really. Obviously, you know, it was unethical nowadays to just sort of grab them and make them do this. One thing they did promise them though in exchange was that when they got to the Americas, they would be adopted into a family there. And it was a much better shape than they would probably get in Spain. And we know that when the head doctor got into Mexico City, he did hand them over to families there, but beyond that, we really don't know exactly what happened to them.

CO: As people were spreading into the continent and vaccinating people in this way by giving them an infection that came from somebody else. Was there resistance, was there anti-vaxxers, were there skeptics in the way there are now?

SK: There was a little bit. Most people were actually very happy to see them. You hear about these stories of people ringing church bells and holding bullfights in their honour when the doctors finally came with this miraculous vaccine. But there was some resistance amongst doctors, of all people, because in a lot of cases they had grown rich, giving people quack treatments to prevent smallpox outbreaks. That probably didn't work. But there were some people who were resistant because they were going to lose patience and money if people no longer got the disease. So, yeah, there was a little resistance there.

CO: It seems extraordinary to hear this story, but then there probably will be a time in the future when they think it's extraordinary that you had to have a freezer that was at minus 70 in order to keep a vaccine fresh.

SK: Writing about history and science is one thing you always wonder. You look back and you think, you know, what are people going to be amazed about in our times that will just seem totally crazy and ridiculous to them. And this is one of those cases. Yeah.

CO: Sam it was good to talk to you. Thanks for the story.

SK: Thank you for having me.

CO: Bye.

CH: Sam Kean recently wrote a piece for The Atlantic about how the smallpox vaccine was rolled out. He's also the author of The Disappearing Spoon. We reached him in Washington, D.C.

[Music: percussion instrumental]

Listener’s chicken story

Guest: Maria L

CH: At some point, someone that a bunch of chickens run free on the island of Key West, Florida, and now those chickens and their offspring and their offspring's offspring have come home to roost over the years, the city has done a whole bunch of things to try to get the poultry population under control. And on Friday's show, we told you the city is now trying to get its human population under control by banning residents from feeding the occasionally aggressive birds. It's supposed to be a wake up call. And Maria Learic knows a lot about wake up calls because she knows a lot about roosters. And when she heard that interview, she called us with a story of her own.

MARIA LAERIC: Hello, this is Maria Learic from Merritt, British Columbia.

ML: I am a small family farmer and I also raise chickens for eggs. My chicken mums are very, very passionate mothers and every spring and summer, they have lots of babies. Half of those babies usually are roosters. And then when the time comes to say, well, you can't keep all of you guys, it's all this really, really hard to make a choice because one is more beautiful than the other and they all have different character traits. So eventually last year I ended up with, I think, 10 roosters that we kept just couldn't, couldn't kill them. But ten is a big number. So I ended up writing a poem about them. I titled it Characters:

ML: Natus Noisey Alarm Clock, the first thought that comes to mind. Then you spot a rooster striding by the conceited male of chicken kind. After many years observing them, my opinion began to change. I noticed different character traits in surprising lightning range. Them to Snow White, silky dwarf, no rival too big to face, shy around humans and always alert conducting himself with grace. Cheche, who claims all the hens for himself hysterical, fierce, on the goal. The females are not very keen of him dislike his flamboyant show. Soulet and Rusty are in charge of the older ladies around. Find treats for them. A gentleman communicate this clucking sound. Hey Hey, use dominant status. He's shy in size. The reason we saw it in a carefree lifestyle surrounded by many hens all season. Senior Rob and crippled Ricco an accident left him lame. Are both just here to enjoy the life. They're quiet, friendly, tame and finally young Frosty now old enough to roam free. He still must establish his place in the crowd. What he makes out of it, we'll see.

CH: Thank you, Maria, for the fantastic poem. And if you have a chicken story to tell or a poem, call Talkback at 416-205-5687 or email us at AIH@CBC.ca.

January 26, 2021 Episode Transcript

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