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The House of Pod

The House of Pod

The Time the UN Gave Haiti Cholera

Jun 23, 2026 · 1h 10m

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About this episode

In January 2010, a catastrophic earthquake devastated Haiti — a country that hadn't seen a single case of cholera in over a century. Then, months later, people living along the Artibonite River started getting violently ill. Within 29 days, cholera had spread throughout all of Haiti. The source? A UN peacekeeping base upstream, whose sewage was flowing directly into the river. In this episode, Dr. Kaveh Hoda is joined by co-host Kieran Hervold and special guest Joe Kassabian — host of the Lions Led By Donkeys podcast — to break down one of the most consequential public health failures in modern history. They cover what cholera actually is and how it kills, why the UN was in Haiti in the…