
Pandora's Gamble
Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $21.83
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Pamela Almand
-
By:
-
Alison Young
About this listen
This fearless, deeply reported book about laboratory accidents asks the haunting question some elite scientists don’t want the public to entertain: Did the COVID-19 pandemic start with a lab leak in Wuhan, China?
This is an obvious question. Yet there’s been an extraordinary effort by government officials in China, as well as leading scientific experts in the United States and around the world, to shut down any investigation or discussion of the lab leak theory. In private, however, some of the world’s elite scientists have seen a lab accident as a very real and horrifying possibility. They know what the public doesn’t. Lab accidents happen with shocking frequency. Even at the world’s best-run labs.
That’s among the revelations from Alison Young, the award-winning investigative reporter who has spent nearly 15 years uncovering shocking safety breaches at prestigious U.S. laboratories for USA Today and other respected news outlets.
In Pandora’s Gamble, Young goes deep into the troubling history—and enormous risks—of leaks and accidents at scientific labs. She takes listeners on a riveting journey around the world to some of the worst lab mishaps in history, including the largely unknown stories of the lab workers at the U.S. Army’s Camp Detrick who suffered devastating infections at alarming rates during World War II. And her groundbreaking reporting exposes for the first time disturbing new details about recent accidents at prestigious laboratories—and the alarming gaps in government oversight that put all of us at risk.
Sourced through meticulous reporting and exclusive interviews with key players including Dr. Anthony Fauci, former CDC Director Tom Frieden and others, Young’s examination reveals that the only thing rare about lab accidents is the public rarely finds out about them. Because when accidents happen, powerful people and institutions often work hard to keep the information secret.
©2023 Alison Young (P)2023 Center StreetListeners also enjoyed...
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Deception
- The Great COVID Cover-Up
- By: Rand Paul
- Narrated by: Joe Louis
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
COVID-19 was deadly, but the real killer was the coverup, led by America’s most durable medical bureaucrat—a man for whom the truth was too often expendable. Senator Paul makes a powerful case that funding dangerous bioengineering in a totalitarian country is madness.
-
-
Not so much a book for today...
- By Mermaid on 10-15-23
By: Rand Paul
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Pathogenesis
- A History of the World in Eight Plagues
- By: Jonathan Kennedy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Kennedy
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.
-
-
Devolves into political advocacy
- By Mark Fackler on 04-29-23
By: Jonathan Kennedy
-
"Cause Unknown"
- The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022
- By: Ed Dowd
- Narrated by: Eric Torres
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2020 saw a spike in deaths in America, smaller than you might imagine during a pandemic, some of which could be attributed to COVID and to initial treatment strategies that were not effective. But then, in 2021, the stats people expected went off the rails. The CEO of the OneAmerica insurance company publicly disclosed that during the third and fourth quarters of 2021, death in people of working age (18–64) was 40 percent higher than it was before the pandemic. Significantly, the majority of the deaths were not attributed to COVID.
-
-
A must read from the brilliant Ed Dowd!
- By taipan on 08-21-23
By: Ed Dowd
-
The Devil's Chessboard
- Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
- By: David Talbot
- Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
- Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful - and secretive - colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times best seller Brothers.
-
-
Disturbing. Makes you question the company line.
- By KTS on 02-06-16
By: David Talbot
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Deception
- The Great COVID Cover-Up
- By: Rand Paul
- Narrated by: Joe Louis
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
COVID-19 was deadly, but the real killer was the coverup, led by America’s most durable medical bureaucrat—a man for whom the truth was too often expendable. Senator Paul makes a powerful case that funding dangerous bioengineering in a totalitarian country is madness.
-
-
Not so much a book for today...
- By Mermaid on 10-15-23
By: Rand Paul
-
Going Infinite
- The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
- By: Michael Lewis
- Narrated by: Michael Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side?
-
-
really expected more rigor from Michael Lewis
- By Wowhello on 10-04-23
By: Michael Lewis
-
Pathogenesis
- A History of the World in Eight Plagues
- By: Jonathan Kennedy
- Narrated by: Jonathan Kennedy
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.
-
-
Devolves into political advocacy
- By Mark Fackler on 04-29-23
By: Jonathan Kennedy
-
"Cause Unknown"
- The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022
- By: Ed Dowd
- Narrated by: Eric Torres
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2020 saw a spike in deaths in America, smaller than you might imagine during a pandemic, some of which could be attributed to COVID and to initial treatment strategies that were not effective. But then, in 2021, the stats people expected went off the rails. The CEO of the OneAmerica insurance company publicly disclosed that during the third and fourth quarters of 2021, death in people of working age (18–64) was 40 percent higher than it was before the pandemic. Significantly, the majority of the deaths were not attributed to COVID.
-
-
A must read from the brilliant Ed Dowd!
- By taipan on 08-21-23
By: Ed Dowd
-
The Devil's Chessboard
- Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
- By: David Talbot
- Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
- Length: 25 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful - and secretive - colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times best seller Brothers.
-
-
Disturbing. Makes you question the company line.
- By KTS on 02-06-16
By: David Talbot
-
The Last Honest Man
- The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys—and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy
- By: James Risen, Thomas Risen - contributor
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Senator Frank Church of Idaho was an unlikely hero. He led congressional opposition to the Vietnam War and had become a scathing, radical critic of what he saw as American imperialism around the world. But he was still politically ambitious, privately yearning for acceptance from the foreign policy establishment that he hated and eager to run for president. Despite his flaws, Church would show historic strength in his greatest moment, when in the wake of Watergate he was suddenly tasked with investigating abuses of power in the intelligence community.
-
-
why do so many books have a liberal bias?
- By Doug Altrichter on 08-20-23
By: James Risen, and others
-
Spillover
- By: David Quammen
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 20 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia - but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. David Quammen tracks this subject around the world.
-
-
Fascinating, but not Riveting
- By L. M. Roberts on 03-08-14
By: David Quammen
-
Number Go Up
- Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
- By: Zeke Faux
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”? As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as curiosity—with a dash of FOMO—would morph into a two-year globe-spanning quest.
-
-
Phenomenal story
- By Michael on 10-05-23
By: Zeke Faux
-
The Real Anthony Fauci
- Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health
- By: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Narrated by: Bruce Wagner
- Length: 27 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Real Anthony Fauci details how Fauci, Gates, and their cohorts use their control of media outlets, scientific journals, key government and quasi-governmental agencies, global intelligence agencies, and influential scientists and physicians to flood the public with fearful propaganda about COVID-19 virulence and pathogenesis, and to muzzle debate and ruthlessly censor dissent.
-
-
Could be shorter
- By Evan Snow on 01-03-22
-
Lessons from the Covid War
- An Investigative Report
- By: COVID Crisis Group
- Narrated by: Derek Shetterly
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our national leaders have drifted into treating the pandemic as though it were an unavoidable natural catastrophe, repeating a depressing cycle of panic followed by neglect. So a remarkable group of practitioners and scholars from many backgrounds came together determined to discover and learn lessons from this latest world war. Lessons from the COVID War is plain-spoken and clear sighted. It cuts through the enormous jumble of information to make some sense of it all and answer: What just happened to us, and why? And how, next time, could we do better? Because there will be a next time.
-
-
Great, but more is needed...
- By Michael on 06-28-23
-
Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who.
-
-
Elite Psychobabble
- By A Reviewer on 09-30-23
By: Naomi Klein
-
One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1
- The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein
- By: Whitney Alyse Webb
- Narrated by: Grace Noble
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume one of One Nation Under Blackmail traces the origin of the network behind Jeffrey Epstein and his associates to the merging of organized crime and intelligence networks during World War II, following their most notable activities through the decades.
-
-
A must have
- By Steven Gerweck on 04-04-23
-
Vax-Unvax
- Let the Science Speak
- By: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Brian Hooker
- Narrated by: Eric Torres
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each of these studies is analyzed and put in context of the difference in health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated infants, children, and adults.
-
-
Essential reading
- By Anonymous on 10-10-23
By: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and others
-
The Looming Tower
- Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Lawrence Wright
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.
-
-
Supremely thorough and interesting
- By Josh on 10-05-17
By: Lawrence Wright
-
The War on Ivermectin
- The Medicine That Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the Pandemic
- By: Pierre Kory
- Narrated by: Troy Wolfe
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ivermectin is a dirty word in the media. The drug has been derided and declared useless. Doctors have earnestly recorded pleas asking those afflicted with COVID-19 not to take the drug. But why? The War on Ivermectin is the personal and professional narrative of Dr. Pierre Kory, the co-founder of an expert group of physicians, and his plight to alert the world of his group's identification of ivermectin as a highly effective, life-saving, widely available generic medicine with an obvious ability to end the global pandemic.
-
-
Excellent Overview of this Tragic Time
- By Mrs MM on 07-01-23
By: Pierre Kory
-
Viral
- The Search for the Origin of COVID-19
- By: Matt Ridley, Alina Chan
- Narrated by: Gavin Osborn
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A new virus descended on the human species in 2019 wreaking unprecedented havoc. Nearly two years into the pandemic, the crucial mystery of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not only unresolved but has deepened. In this uniquely insightful book, a scientist and a writer join forces to try to get to the bottom of how a virus whose closest relations live in bats in subtropical southern China somehow managed to begin spreading among people more than 1,500 kilometers away in the city of Wuhan.
-
-
A pivotal work in search of truth around the Covid19 virus in a world where facts got downgraded in favour of politics
- By Pal on 11-25-21
By: Matt Ridley, and others
-
The Perfect Predator
- A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir
- By: Steffanie Strathdee, Thomas Patterson, Teresa Barker - contributor
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the world.
-
-
Reads like a Facebook post....
- By Anonymous User on 03-07-19
By: Steffanie Strathdee, and others
Critic reviews
What listeners say about Pandora's Gamble
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Haylie
- 01-26-25
facts & details
I like all of the facts that the book provided about covid19 and how it originated and was spread but the book was somewhat boring.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- anna
- 05-16-23
put an n95 on cause this sucks
the book is phenomenal, it's our systems that suck. get some n95s and wear them in public because no one is coming to help us.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 05-24-23
This book again shows the critical role of investigative journalists
Phenomenal book and investigative work. Even science has become politicised and it’s increasingly important to educate oneself through works like this book. Highly recommend.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Audiophile
- 06-21-24
It's sure not a conspiracy and never was
I really liked this book and all those who denied this as a conspiracy theory are proven wrong and Alison Young is right. Even though she was blocked at every turn by the administration and bureacrats who didn't want the world to know the truth, she wrote a really good exposee. It is hard to see why ths country tries so hard to protect China but that is what they're doing. This book was a super listen and reader kept my interest and even gave it the tension and suspense in places that you hear in a thriller novel.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ListenClose
- 09-07-23
Detailed & documented expose of biolabs
This is an expose of the hazards and coverups in the world's level 3 and 4 biocontainment labs and what they are actually doing and it should scare the heck ot of us all. The coverups during COVID are just the tip the iceberg and what is still being covered up is monstrous. Clear, concise, and hugely terrifying. Narrator was riveting and handled the terminology and detailed documentation without making it boring. I purchased the ebook, too, just to verify some of the footnotes and this author proved to be extremely accurate and dogged in her perseverance in this investigation. I found it accurate and eye-opening and frightening.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!