**Cancelled, but recorded and avaliable here: https://youtu.be/RNksA-WFDfU**

Robin Wolfe Scheffler follows the search for infectious agents responsible for cancer from nineteenth century theories that cancer was caused by germs through our modern understanding of cancer viruses in his book, A Contagious Cause. Speculation that cancer might be contagious inspired fear, but it also contained a kernel of hope that the strategies used against infectious diseases, especially vaccination, might be able to subdue this dread disease. Today, nearly one in six cancers are thought to have an infectious cause, but the path to that understanding was twisting and turbulent.
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A Contagious Cause is the first book to trace the hunt for a human cancer virus in America, an effort whose scale exceeded that of the Human Genome Project. The government’s campaign merged the worlds of molecular biology, public health, and military planning in the name of translating laboratory discoveries into useful medical therapies. Although the American hunt was ultimately fruitless, this effort nonetheless profoundly shaped our understanding of life at its most fundamental levels. A Contagious Cause links laboratory and legislature, creating a new chapter in the histories of science and American politics.