Georgia Today: Virtual OB-GYN visits, FDA using blockchain technology, Savannah’s dark history
Peter Biello: Welcome to the new Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Monday 2 January 2023. This is the first episode of the new year. Happy New Year to you. I’m Peter Biello. Coming up on today’s episode: Will an online maternal health program help moms across the state? An OB-GYN practice in Atlanta is looking to find out. The FDA is using blockchain technology to track your food from farm to table. And we return to a story we really liked: the story of how Savannah’s scariest stories aren’t about ghosts. These stories and more are coming up Georgia today.
History 1
Peter Biello: An Atlanta OB-GYN is in the process of piloting an online maternal health program. Virtual prenatal care visits can make care more accessible to patients in and outside metro Atlanta. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge has more.
Ellen Eldridge: Expectant mothers can now use telehealth after the 20th week of pregnancy and improved postpartum monitoring kits help determine risks such as preeclampsia and depression. Dr. Jill Purdie is the medical director at Northside Women’s Specialists. She says that telehealth offers advantages over traditional office visits.
Dr. Jill Purdie: Data shows that we don’t miss anything, and in fact, we can actually pick things up earlier because we — our patients have the option of checking their blood pressure, weight and fetal heart rate at home, and they actually do it more often than we would see them in the office.
Ellen Eldridge: The only downside Purdie sees with online appointments is a lack of face-to-face connection when the camera isn’t working. For GPB News, my name is Ellen Eldridge.
History 2
Peter Biello: The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates nearly 80% of the nation’s food supply, is turning to blockchain technology to track food from farm to table. This is reported by GPB’s Sofi Gratas.
Sofi Gratas: According to the FDA, tracking contaminated food via blockchain will take about a week compared to the average month under the old model. The new tracking system is the latest mandate under the 2011 Food Safety and Modernization Act. Thousands of people are hospitalized each year with foodborne illnesses, and billions of dollars are spent on associated medical costs. The updated food traceability list includes soft cheeses, tomatoes, deli salads, nut butters and other items more commonly associated with outbreaks. These items will be assigned lot codes that can track food digitally. Harvesters, processors, producers and others in the supply chain have three years to start complying with the new record-keeping system, which comes into effect next month. For GPB News, I’m Sofi Gratas in Macon.
History 3
Peter Biello: As we look back at some stories you may have missed in 2022, we’ll learn how students at Atlanta City Schools got the chance to interact with farm animals and learn about food production as part of a new USDA initiative to get young Georgians interested in agriculture. GPB’s Riley Bunch reports.
Riley Bunch: Tuesday was no ordinary day at Chattahoochee Hills Charter School. Students from kindergarten through eighth grade lined up outside to meet some interesting new classmates.
Farmer: How are you this morning?
Students: Good.
Farmer: Good. This is Lana. Lana is a Jersey cow. In the United States –
Riley Bunch: Young Georgians had the opportunity to mingle with Lana and a wide variety of other farm animals, from the usual goats and donkeys to even a red-tailed boa constrictor. They were also sent home with seeds to plant to see if they could grow produce in their own backyards. The event was the start of a new USDA initiative to get students interested in urban farming. Arthur Tripp, state executive director of the Farm Service Agency, says immersive programs like this are vital to the state.
Arthur Tripp: You know, it’s so important for us to bridge that gap so that our youth know where their food comes from and hopefully they’ll play a role in that production in the future.
Riley Bunch: The mobile farm will make stops at schools in both Fulton and Gwinnett counties in the coming weeks. For GPB News, I’m Riley Bunch.
History 4
Peter Biello: Lawyer by day, historical tour guide by night, Brandon Carter skips the ghost stories in favor of things that actually happened throughout Savannah’s morbid history. GPB’s Benjamin Payne reports.
Benjamin Payne: Walk around downtown Savannah on any given night and you’re bound to see people going on ghost tours. No wonder why, as Savannah has a reputation as one of America’s most haunted cities. So much so that Ghost Tours business has become something of a cottage industry there, with companies competing to spin the scariest yarn. But as one local history buff puts it, Savannah has so much dark history that you don’t have to make it up.
Brandon Carter: Quick introduction: My name is Brandon. I’m a lawyer here in Savannah. I am a former park ranger for Richmond National Battlefield Park.
Benjamin Payne: Brandon Carter greets a group of a dozen people in downtown Savannah. They’ve gathered on Bay Street to embark on a trip, but not just any trip. It’s his Savannah Dark History Tour, a new passion project from Carter that keeps things spooky without falling for big stories and giving in to ghost stories.
Brandon Carter: I’m not a big ghost so let’s not talk about ghosts on this one. If it’s what you expected, let me know and I’ll be happy to refund you. But what we’re going to do is review some original history that I have done: original research. We’re going to talk about things that actually happened in Savannah. And when we talk about these things, we’re actually going to be where most of those things happened. We’re also going to dispel some of these ghost tour myths.
Benjamin Payne: One of the first stops on the tour is Johnson Square. It was the first of the city’s iconic public squares laid out when Savannah was established in 1733.
Brandon Carter: Savannah was built on death. And the reason is James Oglethorpe. James Oglethorpe is a member of the House of Commons. He is only 25 or 26 years old from 1722 when he takes his seat. And I should mention that Oglethorpe himself killed a man less than five months before he sat down. Oglethorpe was in a tavern in England. He accuses a man next to him of stealing a piece of gold – and alcohol plays a part in a lot of this. So Oglethorpe accuses the man next to him of stealing a piece of gold. And the man hadn’t touched Oglethorpe’s gold piece. He chooses the man so much that the man attacks him and Oglethorpe stabs him and it is ruled self-defense. It is [how] Oglethorpe is able to take his place. But in 1728, after he has been in Parliament for six years, he has a mate in Robert Castille. Castille’s a pretty wealthy guy, and he writes this really neat, quasi-travel-slash-art guide to Europe that goes broke and Castille loses everything and they throw Castille into debtor’s prison in London. And Castille will die of smallpox in debtors’ prison. And from Castile’s death, Oglethorpe comes up with the idea for Georgia. Georgia will be relieving the financially distressed. It is because, again, point one, of the death of Castile that Georgia is born out of death.
Benjamin Payne: Savannah saw many deaths in 1820. That’s when the city was hit by a yellow fever epidemic. Carter says it killed more than 10% of Savannah’s population. And unfortunately, it would not be the city’s only such outbreak of yellow fever.
Brandon Carter: We had another in 1854 where even more people died.
Benjamin Payne: To talk about it, Carter takes people outside a brewery that used to house a hotel called the City Hotel.
Brandon Carter: The myth is that hundreds of people died in this hotel during yellow fever. Here is your first myth busting of the evening. This is the only hotel that stayed open during the yellow fever epidemic of 1854. So if anything, this place saved lives. Yellow fever killed over 1,000 people – 1,060 people in Savannah in 1854. It killed 10 doctors, it killed three medical students and the Catholic bishop here. Ironically – not even ironically, I should say – unfortunately during the yellow fever epidemic, a hurricane hit in the second week of September. So not only do you have yellow fever running rampant, now you have people who have lost their homes. People have drowned. It was horrible in Savannah in 1854. They didn’t know what caused it. And things that were blamed for it in 1854 – of course, we know now, of course, it was mosquitoes – but they blamed it on the dredging of mud from the rivers so that bigger ships could get up. They blamed it on the mud being piled up on the other side of the river. They also blamed bacteria from a Danish ship.
Benjamin Payne: No dark history tour would be complete without a stop at the cemetery: Colonial Park Cemetery, that is, which opened back in 1750. It’s not your typical cemetery, as it sits on just a single downtown city block. It may seem small compared to most other cemeteries. But looks can be deceiving.
Brandon Carter: In 1998, an archaeological survey of this cemetery was carried out. It was a ground penetrating radar that told us where each person was buried in the cemetery. We now know that there are nearly 10,000 burials at Colonial Park Cemetery, which means that no matter where you go in here, you’re stepping on someone. There are still less than 700 headstones in the cemetery. So we don’t know where 90% of the people were in there, where they are. And again, this is something I really think is dark history.
Benjamin Payne: Carter says the study also busted a common myth that still persists today: the myth that Colonial Park Cemetery houses a mass grave from the city’s first yellow fever epidemic. In fact, the ground-penetrating radar found no sign of it.
Brandon Carter: Although almost every inch of this ground is used and people are buried side by side, there was no large amount of ground that could accommodate an actual mass burial in there. So there are all individual graves in there.
Benjamin Payne: A few stops later, we reach the end point of the tour: Mercer House, also known as Mercer Williams House. It was here that antiques dealer Jim Williams fatally shot 21-year-old Danny Hansford in the early 80s. The murder was the basis for a book published in 1994 that you may have heard of.
Brandon Carter: Midnight in the garden for better or for worse. It will stay on The New York Times bestseller list for three years. Savannah’s economy at that time is not driven by tourism, but because of what happens in that book and people wanting to come to Savannah and see the zoo animals that are the residents of Savannah, the tie picks up. In 2019, before COVID, 15 million people came to Savannah and spent $3 billion. Remember Savannah is born out of death and Savannah thrives because of Danny Hansford’s death. Savannah is the only city in America born out of death, and it thrives out of death. Not Salem, Mass., not Gettysburg, Pa., can make that claim. I think Savannah and death or more are intertwined with any other city in the United States. Thank you so much for spending two hours on a Saturday night – during college football season, no less! – and comes out here. If you have any questions, feel free to add them to me and I’ll be happy to answer.
Benjamin Payne: I had one question for Carter after the trip. During the trip there are some moments when you want to dispel myths. Would you consider yourself a ghostbuster?
Brandon Carter: That is the most amazing question ever. I would certainly consider myself a ghostbuster and I may start using it. Thank you.
Benjamin Payne: For GPB News, I’m Benjamin Payne in Savannah.
Peter Biello: And that’s it for today’s edition Georgia today. For more news from GPB, check out our Georgia today newsletter at GPB.org/Newsletters and visit our website, GPB.org/News. Your feedback is welcome as always. Let us know by email what you thought of this podcast, maybe something you want to listen to in the new year. You can email us at [email protected].
I’m Peter Biello. Thank you very much for listening.
