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Garrett takes us to India, where she meticulously examines the course of the countrys pneumonic plague; to Zaire, where the Ebola virus is still largely unchecked; and to Russia, where bad policy and a collapsing society have made for staggering setbacks in all areas of health. Garrett also exposes the ungoverned world of biological terrorism.



About the Author

Laurie Garrett

Laurie Garrett is the only writer ever to have been awarded all three of the Big "Ps" of journalism: the Peabody, the Polk, and the Pulitzer. LATEST BOOK: I HEARD THE SIRENS SCREAM: How Americans Responded to the 9/11 and Anthrax Attacks, available exclusively as an e-book.WEBSITE: Visit www.lauriegarrett.comHer journalistic efforts at KPFA-FM radio in northern California garnered the 1977 George Foster Peabody broadcast journalism award, for a series called "Science Story." In 1996 Garrett received the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the 1995 Ebola virus epidemic in Kikwit, Zaire. The following year she was awarded the George C. Polk award for a series of more than 30 articles she published in Newsday, documenting the collapse of health and rise of HIV, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and dozens of other diseases in the former Soviet countries. Her second Polk Award was given in recognition of the reporting in BETRAYAL OF TRUST: The Collapse of Global Public Health.Laurie Garrett was in graduate school studying immunology when she started reporting, as a sideline, on Berkley radio station KPFA-FM. After a year of this hobby, including the co-production of a radio series, "Science Story," Garrett and colleague Adi Gevins were awarded the George Foster Peabody Award for Broadcasting, the highest such honor for radio. Garrett continued working at KPFA, in multiple jobs including management, reporting, documentary production, and disc jockey. She received multiple awards during this period, including the so-called "Major Award" in broadcasting from the Edwin Howard Armstrong Foundation.In 1979 Garrett spent a year covering a variety of stories overseas, including the SALT-II nuclear disarmament negotiations between the US and USSR, the World Food Summit in Rome, civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) , the anti-apartheid activities in the African frontline states, and a long list of outbreaks and disease issues across sub-Saharan Africa. During this period she resided primarily in Lusaka, Zambia, reporting for a variety of news outlets, from Pacifica Radio to the BBC.From 1980-88 Garrett worked as a Science Correspondent for National Public Radio, based first in San Francisco and then Los Angeles. Her work at NPR, which featured detailed coverage of the unfolding HIV/AIDS epidemic in the US and Africa, was honored with a long list of awards and recognition. Garrett began covering the AIDS epidemic in June 1981, and continuously chronicled the horrible spread of the disease and its toll for more than 20 years.In mid-1988 Garrett left NPR to join the science writing and foreign desk staffs of Newsday, then the third largest daily newspaper in America. Garrett covered a diverse range of stories all over the world, including: the spread of HIV around Lake Victoria, plague in India, Chernobyl radiation illness in Ukraine, toxic waste in El Salvador, discovery of ancient tombs in the Egyptian desserts, and SARS in Beiji



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