Federal Bodysnatchers and the New Guinea Virus: Tales of People, Parasites, and Politics

Water under my grandmother's bridge -- West Nile-on-the-Danube : The virus before 1999 -- West Nile-on-the-Hudson : the virus, 1999 and beyond -- The DDT jitters -- The malaria $millions -- Malaria : millions for the vaccine but not one cent for defense -- The curious case of the wake-up-from-the-dead drug and the bearded lady -- Everybody's making money but Tchaikovsky -- The New Guinea retrovirus and the federal bodysnatchers -- We're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave -- Loose stools and troubled waters : Cryptosporidiosis.;Twenty years ago the world slept, confident that biomedical science would protect it from devastating plagues. Our wake-up call sounded at the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic. Then came other unfamiliar pathogens in its wake, among them the West Nile virus. Meanwhile, the neglected diseases of the third world, including malaria and African sleeping sickness, festered -- their victims salvageable only by unaffordable, patent-protected drugs. Robert S. Desowitz traces the histories of these diseases and the issues we must confront -- the morality and legality of patent laws covering biomedical "inventions," the effect of global warming on epidemics, the commercial relationships of publicly supported biomedical scientists and industry, and the growing dissociation of clinicians and public health professionals. The resolution of these issues, now under the terrifying shadow of bioterrorism, is essential for the well-being -- possibly even for the ultimate survival -- of the entire human species. "[Desowitz's] stories...rank among the best current examples of medical detective prose."— Booklist Twenty years ago the world slept, confident that biomedical science would protect it from devastating plagues. Our wake-up call sounded at the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic. Then came more unfamiliar pathogens in its wake, such as the West Nile virus. Meanwhile, the neglected diseases of the third world, including malaria and African sleeping sickness, festered—their victims salvageable only by unaffordable, patent-protected drugs. Robert S. Desowitz traces the histories of these diseases and the issues we must confront—the morality and legality of patent laws, the effect of global warming on epidemics, public support for the commercial biochemical industry, the growing dissociation of clinicians and public health professionals, and the terrifying shadow of bioterrorism. If "emerging diseases" had a sense of humor, they would be amused at being "discovered" like some lost tribe.