Happy to report that I will be giving the “Ray Kling Distinguished Lecture in Public Health” at the University of Oklahoma and the “Chautauqua Lecture” at Eastern Kentucky University this April. I believe that both lectures will be open to the public, which is great. For more info, or to arrange an event at your organization or university, please contact Jodi Solomon Speakers Bureau.
Check out recent and forthcoming live and media events here, too.
Reviewers in the mainstream media have been really kind to “The Fever,” for which I’m tremendously grateful, as their comments are getting the book out into the world. But I’ve awaited reviews from scientific journals with the most trepidation. Not only because the scientific community is notorious for its harsh judgments–scientists rarely give unreserved approval, especially when called upon to critique–but because I really wanted to get the science of malariology right in the book. And they’d be the ones to know if I had.
The journal Nature is one of the world’s most prestigious science journals and certainly the world’s most cited one. It’s also unusual in being a general-interest weekly. Dr Awa Marie Coll-Seck is the former minister of health of Senegal and the director of the world’s foremost international malaria campaign, Roll Back Malaria. So it was a great honor for Nature to choose, out of the scores of books written about science, to review The Fever, and for Coll-Seck to write the review. Sort of like E.O. Wilson reviewing a popular book on ants. Or Bill Gates reviewing a popular book on technology. And by and large, Coll-Seck seems to have enjoyed it–
“In The Fever, journalist Sonia Shah makes sense of the multifaceted history of this harrowing disease and our response to it….By describing malaria’s role in the rise and fall of peoples, cities and civilizations, the book reveals the massive imprint of this disease on health and life expectancy, politics, commerce and war….The Fever clearly traces the growing understanding of the causes, transmission and prevention of malaria….Shah astutely points out that many of the challenges that stalled past efforts have yet to be overcome….Shah’s ultimate message is spot on: that the fight against malaria is complex. Ending it, as she says, is tough and unlikely to happen in our lifetimes.”
Coll-Seck takes issue with my critique of Roll Back Malaria–the organization she directs–which is understandable. It would not be fitting for her to admit to its well-documented weaknesses. Of course, I stand by my analysis, regardless. What I was most struck by in her review is that she agreed fully with my account of the science and history of malaria. A great relief and validation!
The New Scientist is another general-interest science weekly, although unlike Nature it does not publish peer-reviewed work. They contacted the head of Medecins Sans Frontieres’ malaria program to review The Fever. That he, a frontline malaria warrior, enjoyed the book, without reservation, is especially gratifying.
“Raw, vivid…Shah presents a fascinating history….The Fever is a mine of information, drawing on diverse accounts from medical experts and field workers. This is an important book on the historical lessons we must not forget and the mistakes we are still making today in the battle against what remains a formidable killer.”
Read more reviews, including some complete ones, here.
An op-ed I wrote about a forbidden topic–the fact that many rural Africans do not want to sleep under the bednets we donate to them–appeared in this weekend’s Los Angeles Times. A prominent malariologist had this to say about it: “Excellent story – finally someone that dares to speak up. Mind you, your death sentence has been signed in Geneva by publishing this. You’ll be hated by the die-hard believers of nets…”
Perfect. That’s the kind of feedback that makes me feel like I’m doing my job. Check it out on this site, or at LA Times.
Also, in honor of last week’s World Malaria Day, see my article on greener methods of malaria control at Yale e360, and my blog post on the folly of square bednets for round huts at Ms. Magazine.
This weekend I spoke at the Social Justice Summit at California State University at Fullerton. It’s organized annually by an all-volunteer team of students and staff, who spend the better part of the year hatching an all-day series of lectures, workshops, food and fun revolving around a wide range of social justice issues, from anti-war activism and malaria to animal rights and local poverty.
What a lovely event! Full of warm, enthusiastic students and community members, with tons of energy and passion. I found it quite inspiring. Thank you, Students ACT, for inviting me! I wish I could have stayed longer!
My story on the problem of pharmaceutical residues in the environment–which has led to the mass poisoning of vultures in South Asia–is now up on Yale e360, and here on this website.
I’ll never look at my medicine cabinet, or drugstore aisles, the same way. I had no idea that so many drugs we take pass through the body–and waste treatment plants–virtually intact. All those antibacterial soaps and sprays and pills and potions at your local CVS? Turns out that a vast majority of the drugs within, after use, will end up in waterways and sediments, where their residues will rub shoulders with soil and marine bacteria, exchanging genes. Whatever doesn’t kill them makes them stronger.
I know first-hand. My son just survived a bout of MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphlococcus aureus) rash. For him, it was a minor annoyance (albeit an alarming one.) For people with compromised immune systems or with background illnesses, drug-resistant bacteria are killers.
RIP Gyps vultures, too, poisoned to the brink of extinction by the anti-inflammatory drugs in the treated livestock they feed upon.
People are actually wearing these t-shirts
OK, I don’t like Obama’s proposal to open up vast areas of the Atlantic coast, Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan coast for offshore drilling. There isn’t much oil and gas there–not enough to feed our oil-thirst for more than a few years at best–and many of these areas are already completely despoiled and need to be protected, not ravaged once again. Oil and gas companies will certainly be happy to bid on the new blocks, nevertheless. All the infrastructure to siphon oil and gas out of these tiny little fields is already in place, so their costs will be low despite the paltry return. (They also won’t have to pay for protection as they do in Nigeria and Iraq etc etc.) So long as prices stay high, they’ll be able to make a tidy profit.
But I don’t think it is fair to call Obama’s plan the same as Bush/Cheney/Palin’s. Bush, Cheney and Palin claimed that offshore drilling was sufficient to solve our energy crisis altogether. That’s not what I hear Obama saying about this plan. This is about the government making some money by selling these leases–and we should watch carefully to see where that money goes–to ease the necessary transition away from oil and gas. Very different. Bush saw offshore drilling as a cure, which was dishonest and unfair. For Obama, it’s a band-aid.
Offshore drilling is not going to make oil cheap and it’s not going to allow Americans to continue wantonly burning crude. It isn’t going to liberate us from foreign oil, either. It’s a drop in the bucket. We’ll still need to do all the hard work of transitioning away from hydrocarbons. Obama seems to understand this. And that’s crucial.
WHO reports this week that multi-drug resistant tuberculosis has reached unprecedented levels worldwide: one in four in some places! Meanwhile here in the US, we’re in a snit over a few modest reforms for health insurers. I have a new article coming out at e360 on how wanton overuse of antibiotics contributes to the spread of resistant bacteria. E.g. much of the antibiotics we feed to our livestock and douse our bodies with are excreted into the environment unchanged, deposited into waterways, spread on crops as fertilizer. When bacteria in the water and soil are exposed to this stuff, it selects for resistant strains….which can then trade genes with other, more pathogenic bacteria (they do that, those bacteria!) You’d be surprised to know the huge proportion of the drugs we consume actually end up in the environment, essentially unchanged. It’s not something most people think about.
Considering the scale of the health issues we face, our national snit over health insurance reform seems especially petty.
Check out the WHO report here.
I had a lovely conversation with Philip Adams of Australia’s national public radio program “Late Night Live” today, about malaria, the fall of Rome, and the bother of mosquito nets. You can check it out here.
For Ms. Magazine. Ms. holds a place near to my heart for being the first national magazine that published my writing, way back in the early 1990s.I will be occasionally blogging for their new Ms. blog (which makes me, ahem, “Ms. Blogger”). Here’s a link to my first post, on how a Microsoft exec’s recent TED lecture exploits the suffering of millions of African women and children:
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/03/08/ted-lecturer-exploits-african-womenchildren/
Check it out, make a comment, let me know what you think!
Sonia on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, February 15, 2021 episode, "The Next Pandemic"
"How Unhealthy Paradigms Become Contagious"
"Three Reasons We Still Haven't Got Rid of Malaria"
© 2024 Sonia Shah
