The LLIN—“long lasting insecticide treated net”—is actually not very long lasting, after all. Years ago when I first started learning about them, I was told by experts that they were meant to last 3-5 years. That’s longer than older model nets, but for a disease as pernicious as malaria it is really not particularly long [...]
Anyone familiar with the history of malaria control will find the below article, from NatureNews, unsettlingly familiar. Western donors flood the malarious world with insecticide-treated bednets, and foresee malaria’s impending demise. Experts warn that the mosquitoes will learn to rout the chemical blitz; supporting evidence piles up, and is ignored; the years go by. Then, [...]
In the end, I had to Skype in to this year’s World Conference of Science Journalists conference in Doha, Qatar, and deliver my presentation on the issue of drug trials in developing countries via YouTube video. (You can check it out here.) Here’s what the Guardian newspaper had to say about it. “Ethics left behind [...]
So honored and flattered to find out that “The Fever” is one of 13 science books long-listed for the Royal Society Winton prize, considered the Booker Prize of science writing. The short-list of 6 will be announced in September, and the winner in November. Fingers crossed!
AIDS journalist Helen Epstein takes on malaria politics in this month’s Harper’s magazine, in a long and thoughtful review essay on The Fever. It’s enough to make a gal re-subscribe (which I just did!)
Coming this June, Picador’s paperback edition of ‘The Fever,’ complete with spiffy new cover. Keep an eye out!
Yes, another famous person has come down with malaria! It was British model Cheryl Cole most recently, and now the actor George Clooney, who has just recovered from a bout contracted in Sudan. He’s taking questions about the disease at NYTimes.com, via Nicholas Kristof’s blog.
It’ll be interesting to learn whether he took prophylaxis or not. [...]
“The lessons of history should give us pause,” writes the medical historian W.F. Bynum in a long piece about malaria vaccines in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.
The occasion for Bynum’s piece is the publication of an optimistic new book about malaria vaccines, written by the entrepreneur-philanthropist Bill Shore, with the somewhat nauseating title of “The
Imaginations [...]
Controlling malaria–as opposed to eradicating it, as today’s enthusiasts urge–may be a safer, more sustainable and socially valuable goal, I argue in this op-ed, which appears in today’s New York Times online (and also in the International Herald Tribune). Read it here.
Last week, I spoke with medical journalist Randi Hutter Epstein, about malaria, politics, Jeff Sachs, and the future of mosquitoes, in a video interview arranged by Bloggingheads.tv. Randi, whose new book Get Me Out is on the history of childbirth, did her medical school thesis on malaria history, and also wrote a nice review of [...]
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Sonia Shah