“As a scientist I like to be in the laboratory and all of a sudden I was rushed to the spotlight”

Katalin Karikó was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023 for her work helping to develop covid vaccines which saved millions of lives worldwide. However misinformation created fear and mistrust in the vaccination programme and thrust Karikó into the eye of a disinformation storm.

Karikó tells her story to the BBC’s Babita Sharma, while US educator and artist Young Elder tells Sharma how she helped to build trust in the vaccine among Baltimore’s black community.

This podcast is part of a co-production between BBC World Service and Nobel Prize Outreach to examine disinformation and the role of critical thinking.

Across four episodes we hear from Nobel Prize laureates about the spread of disinformation in their fields of work and the young people around the world combatting and exposing these distortions.

First published June 2024