Today I randomly came across a long thoughtful pieceabout an essay I wrote over a decade ago…about the issues thatoccupied me for the first five years of my writing life–biculturalism,feminism, and sexuality. Who knew those old essays were still makingthe rounds?
Canada.cominterviewed the curator of a new exhibit on energy and oil, who verykindly mentioned my [...]
I’ve spent the last month putting together material for a new websiteon the topic of my next book: resurgent malaria. MalariaResurgent.comwill be a provocative, opinionated take on humankind’s oldest disease,why it still plagues us, and what can be done about it. There’ll bestories, history, videos, and most of all, conversation. The site shouldbe live soon [...]
I’m thrilled to report that the Body Hunters has been translated into six languages, besides English (Japanese, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Korean.) The French edition, in particular, appears to be making a splash. It’s been selected a “book of the month” by a prominent popular science magazine, and was covered in the French version of [...]
Inhaled insulin: Here’s a great illustration of how disconnected the drug industry has become from public health….or even individual peoples’ health. When I went to a industry conference a few years back, Pfizer execs were gloating over their great new experimental product, a form of inhaled insulin. The drug was still in clinical trials–meaning they [...]
The New York Times ran a piece on distributing insecticide-treated nets for malaria today. It is an old story. There were long and tedious workshops on it at the last malaria conference I went to in Cameroon two years ago. I agree that bednets should be considered a social good, but it isn’t right to [...]
Will the Nigerian charges against Pfizer change how drug companies conduct clinical trials in developing countries? I don’t think so. The Nigerian authorities seem to be more interested in sensationalizing the charges and catering to their own disgruntled populace. (And can we really expect the Nigerian government and an American company to come clean about [...]
Nigerian authorities have threatened to send Interpol to capture Pfizer staffers, after the nine Pfizer employees brought up on criminal charges in Nigeria failed to show up in court on Wednesday, after being served not just one but two summons.
“If they fail to appear in court” on November 6, the judge said, “we will have [...]
For years, the drug industry has been plagued with the problem of finding enough human subjects to take experimental drugs. Each new drug they develop requires about 4,000 patients in clinical trials, who must undergo some 141 separate medical procedures. Increasingly, Americans and Western Europeans are just not that interested. Eighty percent of clinical trials [...]
Newsweek’s short piece on malaria in Africa (September 24, 2007) is full of misinformation and mythology. For example, there has never been any continent-wide malaria control in Africa, as the lead sentence brazenly states; mosquitoes develop resistance to DDT by exposure to brand-name pesticides sold by Western chemical companies like BASF and others, not just [...]
Nigerian authorities slapped criminal charges on Pfizer this month, alleging that the company’s infamous 1996 botched antibiotic trial there was “rash and negligent,” and endangered lives.
Some of the subjects in the trial died, others suffered permanent disability, and the prosecutors say it’s Pfizer’s fault for providing a too-low dose of its comparator drug. (Listen to [...]
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Sonia Shah