Infected: How Power, Politics, and Privilege Use Science Against the World’s Most Vulnerable

Zaman (We Wait for a Miracle), a biomedical engineering professor at Boston University, delivers a potent history of harmful infectious disease policies in the U.S. and beyond. While medical advances over the last century have saved millions of lives, Zaman argues that such success is only part of the story, claiming that governments and powerful political entities have exploited infectious disease research to enact racist policies, harm vulnerable groups in the name of scientific discovery, and weaponize infection for wars. He describes, for example, the Tuskegee syphilis study (1932–1972) in which the U.S. Public Health Service withheld treatment from Black residents in rural Alabama so doctors could observe the disease’s progression, and studies in Guatemala in the 1940s in which U.S.-funded doctors infected prisoners and psychiatric patients with venereal diseases to test prevention measures. Such abhorrent practices were not limited to the U.S., Zaman notes, describing how in the 1930s Japanese officials put anthrax, cholera, and typhoid agents in waterways in occupied Chinese villages to test the efficacy of biological weapons. Turning to more recent examples, Zaman explains how during the Covid-19 pandemic the Trump administration misused medical knowledge to turn migrants away at the border. The chilling pattern of behavior Zaman uncovers makes for a captivating, eye-opening exploration. This deserves a wide readership. (Nov.)