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My new article in Foreign Affairs–“A Cure for Africa’s Common Cold: Why Malaria Persists“–argues that getting rid of malaria is a whole lot harder than it seems. Check it out at Foreign Affairs.
Category: International Politics (Page 1 of 3)
In Belle-Anse, Haiti, learning about the explosive cholera epidemic
Just returned from Haiti, where I was reporting on the ongoing cholera epidemic, including in the remote fishing village of Belle-Anse in the Sud-Est Department. To get there, we rode motorcycles, caught a ride on a packed minivan over the mountains and then chartered a 15-foot skiff with a periodically dysfunctional outboard engine. The story I found, of how cholera came to Belle-Anse and how it currently holds the village in its deadly thrall, was dramatic, absurd, and tragic all at once. I hope I can do it justice. I’ll be writing about it in my forthcoming book.
So happy to report that I’ve been selected to be the 2014 Ottaway Professor of Journalism at SUNY New Paltz! This is an endowed visiting professorship which I’ll be holding for the 2014 spring semester. There’ll be a few campus-wide lectures about my work and I’ll be teaching a small class on a topic of my choice, most likely something within the intersections of international politics, global health, and science journalism. Looking forward to it! As an added bonus, the lovely New Paltz campus is situated around the scenic Shawangunk mountains, a.k.a. the infamous Gunks for you rock climbing types. I may have to unearth my climbing shoes.
An important new report from the Amsterdam-based NGO Wemos describes how major multinational drug companies are continuing conduct unethical experiments on vulnerable populations including children and the mentally ill in South Africa and other developing countries, putting both their health and their human rights at risk.
I reported on unethical trials like these in South Africa for my book The Body Hunters. The drug industry’s stampede into developing countries like South Africa to conduct their experiments continues. With a high degree of inequality in many of these countries, there’s a great medical infrastructure in place to cater to the rich, and plenty of poor people upon which to wield it to conduct experiments. The experiments they conduct there often have little to do with the public health priorities of the local communities, mind you. Rather, the trials–which, as Wemos ably shows, endanger the health of enrolled subjects–are aimed at generating data to extend patents on drugs or market new ones in the major US and European markets. It’s the very definition of exploitation.
It’s not easy to report on these trials. Untangling the science, the ethics, and the regulatory hurdles is tricky, and it’s all too easy to sensationalize. Wemos gets it right. It’s a great report. Check it out here.
I spent a few weeks last winter in New Delhi, thanks to a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, learning about the spread of a gene called “NDM-1,” which can slip and slide into various species of bacteria, endowing them with the ability to resist all manner of antibiotics, including the last-resort IV antibiotics used exclusively in hospitals. NDM-1, which has been found in puddles and streams around Delhi, has been travelling the world in the bodies of patients who fly into the city for cheap surgeries at local hospitals, a trend supported by the Indian government as a lucrative new source of revenue. I wrote about different aspects of the problem for The Atlantic and Foreign Affairs (and created this audio slide show that’s hosted on the Pulitzer Center’s website): next month, a longer, more narrative piece arrives in Le Monde Diplomatique.
Like many other African countries, colonial-era laws banning homosexuality remain on the books in Uganda. When the HIV/AIDS epidemic exploded there in the mid-1980s, the post-civil-war Ugandan Government launched its famous “ABC” programme, beloved by political conservatives the world over for eschewing traditional HIV prevention and treatment models—with their implicit support for gay rights—in favour of preaching abstinence, monogamy, and regular condom use to the masses instead. Untreated, HIV-infected Ugandans died in droves, but new infections fell too and the AIDS epidemic slid off the Ugandan national agenda.
The political atmosphere in Uganda has grown only more toxic against gays. My review of “Call Me Kuchu,” a moving documentary about the life and tragic death of David Kato, Uganda’s first openly gay man, appears in The Lancet. Check it out here.
Photo by Sonia Shah
My new story on the emergence of a dangerous new form of antibiotic resistant bacteria in India, and how commercial concerns may be complicating efforts to tame it, appears in this week’s Foreign Affairs. Check it out at Foreign Affairs.
Also out: a nifty audio slideshow from my trip to India, on the website of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, which kindly provided funding for my reporting. Listen and watch here.
Photo by Sonia Shah
This is the first of a series of reports on NDM-1 bacteria, bugs endowed with the ability to resist not only commonly used antibiotics but the last-resort IV antibiotics used only in hospitals. NDM-1 first emerged in New Delhi (and is, controversially, named after the city) and has since spread to over 35 countries, primarily in the bodies of medical tourists. I recently returned from a trip to New Delhi, and filed this report for The Atlantic and the Pulitizer Center on Crisis Reporting, which funded my trip. Photos, video, an audio slideshow, and more stories in Foreign Affairs and Le Monde Diplomatique are forthcoming. Stay tuned.
I’ll be talking about my article on private interests in global health on NPR’s “To The Point” today, live at 11 am PT, 2 pm ET. Economist Daniel Altman and Center for Science in the Public Interest’s Bill Jeffrey will be joining, too. Check here for a station list or to listen now.
Sonia’s latest book: The Next Great Migration
Sonia’s latest story in the New Yorker magazine
Sonia’s latest story in the New York Times Magazine
Sonia on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Sonia on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, February 15, 2021 episode, "The Next Pandemic"
Ted Talks
"How Unhealthy Paradigms Become Contagious"
"Three Reasons We Still Haven't Got Rid of Malaria"
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