The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett

appeared in six or seven years. 40
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    Lest anyone in Congress miss the IDAB report’s point, Russell added the following strong words:
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    This is a completely unique moment in the history of man’s attack on one of his oldest and most powerful disease enemies. Failure to proceed energetically might postpone malaria eradication indefinitely.
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    Russell’s plan caught the imagination of several key figures in the American political arena of the late 1950s: Secretary of State George Marshall, Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey, and President Dwight
D. Eisenhower. Though malaria no longer existed in the United States, America was, in 1957, the center of virtually all cash reserves on earth. Europe, Japan, and the U.S.S.R. were still smarting from World War II devastation, and what is now called the developing world was largely in the yoke of colonialism or severe underdevelopment. Having won World War II, Americans were of a mind to “fix things up”: it just seemed fitting and proper in those days that Americans should use their seemingly unique skills and common sense to mend all the ailments of the planet.
    Thus, in 1958 Russell’s battle for malaria eradication began, backed directly by $23.3 million a year from Congress. 41 Because Russell had been so adamant about the time frame, Congress stipulated that the funds would stop flowing in 1963. In addition to the $23.3 million to be spent annually by IDAB, Congress shelled out funds generously between 1958 and 1963 for WHO (contributing 31 percent of its overall budget and more than 95 percent of its malaria budget), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, which got 66 percent of its funds directly from the U.S. Congress), and UNICEF (underwriting 40 percent of the UN Children’s Fund budget). 42 It was a staggering economic commitment, the equivalent of billions of dollars in 1990. Remarkably, American politicians didn’t complain about spending so much money to control diseases few U.S. citizens ever contracted, and the effort enjoyed bipartisan support. President Eisenhower called for the “unconditional surrender” of the microbes, George Marshall foresaw the “imminent conquest of disease,” and Senator Kennedy predicted that children born in the next decade would no longer face the ancient scourges of pestilence.
    The stage was set. The scientists had everything going for them: political support, money, DDT, and chloroquine. So certain were they of victory that malaria research came to a virtual halt. Why research something that will no longer exist?
    Yet when Andy Spielman had started graduate school just five years earlier at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the budding young Colorado scientist was convinced he would have a lifetime’s worth of parasite research puzzles to solve. Socially awkward because of a stuttering speech impediment, Spielman delighted in the introspective world of science. Baltimore colleagues quickly admired his wit, warmth, and ready intelligence. Spielman anticipated decades of studying insects and the parasites they carried.
    He had, however, been in Baltimore less than two months when his mentor, Lloyd Rozeboom, grabbed Spielman by the collar and said, “Let’s get a beer.”
    The downcast Rozeboom bought Spielman a pint and after a few quaffs said, “Look, I’ve got to get this off my chest. I’m conscience-stricken.”
    â€œWhat’s the problem?” Spielman asked.
    â€œI should never have accepted you into graduate school. I should never have encouraged you to pursue medical entomology. It’s a dead field. DDT is killing it,” Rozeboom said.

    Spielman argued it was too early in the game to call the score. But Rozeboom was adamant.
    â€œIt’s all over. There will be no career for you. By the time you’ve finished your thesis all the insect-borne disease problems will be solved,” Rozeboom