About this item
A riveting thriller reminiscent of The Hot Zone, this true story dives into the mystery surrounding one of the most controversial and misdiagnosed conditions of our time - Lyme disease - and of Willy Burgdorfer, the man who discovered the microbe behind it, revealing his secret role in developing bug-borne biological weapons, and raising terrifying questions about the genesis of the epidemic of tick-borne diseases affecting millions of Americans today.While on vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Kris Newby was bitten by an unseen tick. That one bite changed her life forever, pulling her into the abyss of a devastating illness that took ten doctors to diagnose and years to recover: Newby had become one of the 300,000 Americans who are afflicted with Lyme disease each year.As a science writer, she was driven to understand why this disease is so misunderstood, and its patients so mistreated. This quest led her to Willy Burgdorfer, the Lyme microbe's discoverer, who revealed that he had developed bug-borne bioweapons during the Cold War, and believed that the Lyme epidemic was started by a military experiment gone wrong.In a superb, meticulous work of narrative journalism, Bitten takes readers on a journey to investigate these claims, from biological weapons facilities to interviews with biosecurity experts and microbiologists doing cutting-edge research, all the while uncovering darker truths about Willy. It also leads her to uncomfortable questions about why Lyme can be so difficult to both diagnose and treat, and why the government is so reluctant to classify chronic Lyme as a disease.A gripping, infectious page-turner, Bitten will shed a terrifying new light on an epidemic that is exacting an incalculable toll on us, upending much of what we believe we know about it.
About the Author
Kris Newby is the author of the book "Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons." BOOK HONORS2020: International Book Award Winner in Narrative Non-Fiction2020: Nautilus Silver Book Award in Journalism & Investigative Reporting2019: #1 best book in public health by BookAuthority2019: Bookworm best books of 20192019: Kirkus starred review2019: STAT's 23 best health and science books to read this summer (BITTEN #8) 2019: Stanford Medicine best reads of 20192019: Amazon bestseller in three categoriesAs a science writer at Stanford University for nearly a decade, she won several national writing awards for her character-driven, long form stories, including:---2015 Gold Award for Periodical Staff Writing for "Immune system disruption: The search for answers," the story of a young woman felled by chronic fatigue syndrome in Stanford Medicine Magazine. ---2015 Long Reads' Weekly Top Five for the article "Rocket Men: Analyzing the breath of critically ill children at warp speed" in Stanford Medicine Magazine.---2014 AAMC Writing Award for Excellence, CASE Gold Award, & Long Reads' Weekly Top Five for the article "Against the Odds: A Band of Rebels Fights to Save Health Care" in Stanford Medicine Magazine.She was the senior producer of the Lyme disease documentary "Under Our Skin," which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, was nominated as an Academy Award semifinalist in 2010, and went on to win 20 documentary film awards.She was also a finalist for the 2013 Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Golden Padlock Award for her persistence in hounding the Centers for Disease Control to release emails that illuminated financial conflicts of the CDC and the authors of the Infectious Disease Society of America's 2006 Lyme Guidelines. (It took 5.5 years for the CDC to release the emails, one of the longest delays in the agency's history.) Newby has two degrees in engineering, a bachelor's degree from the University of Utah and a master's degree from Stanford University. She spent more than a decade as a freelance writer working for magazines and tech companies such as Apple Computer, Microsoft and Netscape. She lives in Palo Alto, CA, with her husband.Official author page: www.krisnewby.comFacebook page: https://www.facebook.com/kris.newby.3Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/newbykris/UNDER OUR SKIN Trailer: https://underourskin.com/uos1#film"Stanford Medicine" magazine articles: https://stan.md/2U8zNUL
