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[Bonus] From the Cutting Room Floor: Anthrax Decontamination Following the 2001 Attacks

5/28/20268 min

In the inaugural “From the Cutting Room Floor” — where we take parts of interviews that didn’t quite fit in our regular episodes — we talk about anthrax. Well not exactly… we talk about what happens with the chemicals that we use to kill anthrax. In 2001, some high profile people like news anchors and senators received mail laced with anthrax — a spore-forming bacteria that can be deadly. Afterwards, there were many spaces that had to be decontaminated. And Richard Corsi was tapped to study these decontaminants. How did they interact with indoor spaces? Where did they go? How long did they last for? When was it safe for people to return to these spaces? It was a multi-year study that helped explain why sometimes the spaces deemed safe after decontamination still caused harm. 

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Transcripts and episode sources at acs.org/chainreaction

Clips

Not Just In Their Heads
Chemistry Against Anthrax
Designing DAD Database

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Margot Wall· Host0:00

    [upbeat music] This is Chain Reaction, a podcast from the American Chemical Society, where we link chemistry's past to its future. I'm your host, Margot Wall.

  2. Sam Jones· Host0:12

    And I'm Sam Jones.

  3. Margot Wall· Host0:14

    Hey, Sam.

  4. Sam Jones· Host0:18

    Hi, Margot.

  5. Margot Wall· Host0:19

    So welcome to the bonus episode.

  6. Sam Jones· Host0:22

    Thank you.

  7. Margot Wall· Host0:23

    I was talking to the listeners, but you know, you as well.

  8. Sam Jones· Host0:25

    Oh.

  9. Margot Wall· Host0:26

    [laughs] [laughs] I'm just kidding. So as you know, oftentimes the interviews we do for our episodes, they can last sometimes over an hour.

  10. Sam Jones· Host0:35

    Like easily.

  11. Margot Wall· Host0:36

    [laughs] Yes, yes. And I cut them down to around 15 minutes, give or take.

  12. Sam Jones· Host0:41

    Right. We do like to spare our audience from a two-hour podcast.

  13. Margot Wall· Host0:45

    [laughs] Yeah, you're welcome. Um, so a lot of cool stuff gets cut that doesn't quite fit into the story or the flow of the episode.

  14. Sam Jones· Host0:54

    Totally.

  15. Margot Wall· Host0:54

    And that's why we decided to sometimes feature bits that we cut on the podcast as a bonus episode, and we're gonna call it From the Cutting Room Floor. Thanks for the name, Sam.

  16. Sam Jones· Host1:06

    Yeah, you know, that's what I'm here for. That's actually all an exec producer does. I don't know if people knew. [laughs] 'Cause we just come up with names for things.

  17. Margot Wall· Host1:13

    [laughs] Nice. So in the Chemistry of Pollution miniseries, episode one, titled The Air We Want to Breathe, also named by Sam- [laughs] ... [laughs] I interviewed Richard Corsi, Dean of the College of Engineering at UC Davis,

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