Learn more about the historic Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in WHYY’s Radio Times’ interview on August 1. Forty years ago, dozens of American Legion members fell ill with a mysterious disease. The 1976 annual conference of thousands of veterans in Philadelphia and the sickness that followed lead to 34 deaths. Discussion includes the illness that was later identified and named after those afflicted veterans: Legionnaires’ disease. Get a first-hand account of the tension and fear that gripped the region from the doorman at the Bellevue Hotel at the time. Learn more from David Fraser, a Philadelphia area native who led the CDC’s federal field investigation. And Legionella expert Dr. Janet Stout, president and director of the Special Pathogens Laboratory and research associate professor at the the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, explains the new standard and regulations for Legionnaires’ disease prevention.
