Federal Bodysnatchers and the New Guinea Virus: People, Parasites, PoliticsTwenty 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. |
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adjuvant Africa American animals anopheline anthropologist antibodies antigen antimalarial arsenic biomedical birds bites blood brain brucei cancer Carol Jenkins cause cells chloroquine cholera clinical cryptosporidiosis Cryptosporidium Culex dead death Desowitz developed DFMO diarrhea drug effective Ehrlich endemic epidemic epidemiological experimental expert falciparum fever Flushing genes genetic genome Global Eradication global warming Hagahai heartworm Hospital human IDEXX immune industry infection infectious disease insecticide inventors killed laboratory Louis encephalitis virus malaria parasite malaria vaccine malariologist malathion Médicins sans Frontières mice million molecules mosquito National Institutes neurological Novartis numbers oocysts outbreak Papua New Guinea parvum patent pathogen Patorroyo percent pharmaceutical physicians Plasmodium population protein public health Riamet scientists serological severe malaria sleeping sickness species sporozoite spraying T-cell ticks tion tissue transmission transmitted trial tropical medicine trypanosome trypanosomiasis tsetse United Vaniqa vector viral virologists viruses West Nile virus World Health Organization York