(Drug companies take it squarely on the chin here as well, particularly in the chapter titled 'Pharmacological Failure.') In The Fever, she displays the same curiosity, eye for history, and anger on behalf of the oppressed. In previous books, Shah has chronicled 'the story of oil' (Crude) and written about pharmaceutical companies testing drugs on indigent patients (The Body Hunters). In The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years, journalist Sonia Shah provides an absorbing overview of the causes, treatments and effects of the disease, from the birth of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite in Africa thousands of years ago to global health initiatives of the past decade. There have been deadlier, scarier and more stubborn diseases, but few that have affected human evolution and global culture as much as malaria has. Even one of the world's best-known soft drinks, tonic water, gets its name from the mixer's original use as a treatment for malaria (it contains quinine, which is still used, in larger doses, to treat the disease). Many older Americans, particularly in the South, remember chasing after trucks spraying the (now banned) insecticide DDT as children, playing in the cool mist on hot summer days. Malaria has been eradicated in the United States for nearly 60 years, but the disease has still worked its way inextricably into our cultures and identities.

Scientists and physicians have worked for decades upon decades to eliminate the disease, but after tens of thousands of years, it's beginning to look unkillable. Malaria has been a global scourge since the Ice Age, and despite the fact that it's treatable, it still kills about 1 million people a year. The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years

Pandemic sonia shah sparknotes