The Polio Crusade • 2009

74:07

The government rates the global outbreak of a deadly flu virus as a major threat to the UK. It could happen at any time. To predict the impact of the next pandemic more accurately than ever before, new data is needed - and lots of it. Dr Hannah Fry is on the case. She sets out to recruit the nation to download the BBC Pandemic app in a ground-breaking experiment to help plan for when the next deadly virus comes to the UK. How quickly will it spread? How many could it kill? What can we do about it? The BBC Four Pandemic experiment will find out. Hannah masterminds the experiment and adopts the role of Patient Zero by walking the streets of Haslemere in Surrey to launch the outbreak. Meanwhile, emergency physician Dr Javid Abdelmoneim finds out why flu is still such a danger to society a century after Spanish flu killed up to 100 million people worldwide. He meets researchers trying to discover what makes some people more contagious than others and visits a factory that will produce vaccine when the next pandemic flu virus emerges. Armed with the information he gathers and the results of the BBC Four Pandemic experiment, Hannah and Javid make a shocking revelation.

2018 • Health

52:30

Through the lens of a boxer, a first responder, a cell tower climber and a man with a bionic limb, go deep into the universe of the most powerful machine on earth: the human brain and the vast nervous system it controls.

S1E6 • Human: The World Within • 2021 • Health

59:01

Geneticist Spencer Wells presents a broad view of the DNA Testing industry from its beginnings to its broader acceptance by the general public. Now an individual can, for the first time in history, read his own genetic blueprints.

S1E5 • Curiosity Retreats: 2016 Lectures • 2016 • Health

59:15

At an extraordinary moment in the history of one of the world’s oldest and most controversial drugs, Horizon investigates the very latest medical and scientific research into the effects of cannabis on the brain and the body. Medicinal cannabis became legal in the UK on 1 November 2018, but it is still shrouded in controversy. A&E doctor Javid Abdelmoneim wants to find out whether it will help or harm patients. Javid meets the young epilepsy patient responsible for changing the law around medicinal cannabis in the UK and sees the remarkable effects it has on his condition. He visits a medicinal cannabis farm in Denmark to learn how a company known for growing the recreational drug are now producing medicinal cannabis to be exported all over Europe. He travels to Israel, to find out why they have been using cannabis as a medicine for over 20 years and meets the scientists studying the safety and effectiveness of cannabis in treating pain. And he meets the so-called godfather of cannabis, who at 88 years old is still an active research scientist and considered the world’s leading cannabis expert. In the UK Javid encounters the first British patient to be prescribed intoxicating herbal cannabis to treat her chronic condition. He meets psychiatrists at King’s College London who reveal their new study linking cannabis more strongly than ever to alarming mental health problems. And he takes part in a groundbreaking trial looking at the effects of the different chemicals in cannabis on the brain.

Horizon • 2019 • Health

22:56

Sweet deal or bitter pill? High fructose corn syrup rose up to dominate supermarket shelves, but what is it doing to our health?

S2E10 • History 101 • 2022 • Health

49:54

From Oscar-nominated director Scott Hamilton Kennedy (The Garden) and narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Food Evolution investigates the brutally polarized debate surrounding GMOs and our food. Traveling from Hawaiian papaya groves to banana farms in Uganda to the cornfields of Iowa, Food Evolution wrestles with the emotions and the science driving one of the most heated arguments of our time.

2018 • Health