Turn of the century that you would fit into it then becomes sick because the fevers always in the spring and summer when the waters were warming into kids will the swamp. Disfiguring out in 1898 it was caused by mosquitos the focus was on killing mosquitos so those that could afford the work to put the screens on the homes where People Better off had head care in thin day plummeted in that elimination there was still some outbreaks but in Southern Europe and italy that they would live longer and it was much harder to get rid of them in and day tend to be less economically developed from northern parts of the United States. Host where is malaria today . You can find malaria just about where people are pore or live in poverty were where theyre fighting wars. Because that develops a perfect ecosystem for mosquitos because you tear apart the landscape rate were waiting for the of latino said it section to launch the cycle continues or in the deep projects where you come to find most of the intense poverty and malaria is endemic and is always there with plenty of blood meals from the population just with with a with malaria year round and that is 40 percent of the growth. Host who discovered it was a mosquito . He won the nobel prize. You then went on to create the mosquitos brigade. His whole blood for england with a british researcher was to receive a reduce the it to be sure that flared up possible because the carrier and is looking at the behavior of the parasites and if the fed recourse to meet the two weeks later, the sack was left behind but the offspring will get a sealed with saliva could then ask to bite again. So mosquitos and the doors do not live that long where places down south they live a long time. They can easily carry malaria with the two weeks they need to carry the aids in there gut. Host is there an anecdote . There are drugs that can clear that parasites from your blood. Yes. They cannot work for very long because of the parasites that survive are sucked by mosquitos they have developed resistance to is a drug and then they spread that around so drugs last a short while i was at a conference yesterday where they talked about the spread to the most recent series in these resisted parasites are spreading to other parts of the world is you are seeing the resisted parasites even in africa which is for an frightening because it is a frontline drug and most deaths from malaria have been in africa. Host how effective are those sleeping mats . They are probably the best technology we have against malaria but you need to convince people to use them it is hard to convince People Living in sweltering heat to put another layer of material between them and what little air they get. Especially in the summer. Another problem is the mosquitos end they are working with of villages but is a Good Technology in the United States. Lecter is protectionism is you go into the house with nightly chores and gender into are still protected from the us mosquito bite then is there for sleeping and when they change the behavior they can still have access. It is also about a saving childrens lives. If you are in 58 with those deadly symptoms. It is like the flu. It is horrible. Hint you can harvest your crops they will not die but now they talk about the need to get the larger population. Because they carry the parasites to us by focusing on private women and children. There is a much larger problem and a bigger effort they have to make that will require a lot more money. Some people use the word eradication, talkedabout that is a tricky word. The people love the cdc tried to reduce the number of infected people and the number of mosquitos so you reach the threshold of an outbreak. You need that each to prevent. If you keep those numbers down it will of exist but not constantly affecting people in fact, the people. Host can it be passed from person to person . Just through mosquitos. I have malaria and i sneeze on you, you will not get it provides wipes the sweat of my forehead it has to come through the skill and one that has had the parasites and it is long enough for the exact to burst. It is the infant in the saliva bites you within minutes friday they get to your liver to avoid your immune system then they stay and reproduce when they are richard day bust out and attack the blood cells until you become very sick and your body responds with high fever that is inside your new system has kicked in to reduce the number of parasites but you still have the man your blood then they become sexually distinct they swim to the surface and emit a chemical to retract a mosquito with you have malaria you are more attractive to mosquitos and they come to bite and they drink in the adult version they are shaped shifters then they get into the other mosquitos to actually fuse to create a genetically unique offspring that are stick shaped jacket into the saliva of the and the cycle continues. Host how do you get interested in this . I was a political reporter and i covered congress for a while i was interested in Something Else i was also an environmental reporter. But to do that i decided i wanted to research a scientist. So i with is that the national archives. And i would work with the archivist who helped me through the process to find records. There is whole room as large as this. One binder after another you are tracking the Contact Number the scientist had so during world war ii of is trying to track that down and it took three days. I knew the call numbers and one hour later i had the box and there was nothing in there. I had never done Archival Research proposal is started to flip through and i came across a memo that was written to the lead Public Health official of massachusetts and a cast the federal researchers could come into effect patients at the psychopathic hospital with malaria to use drugs against the infections that the outcome of the war was at stake the War Department was experiencing horrendous casualties because of malaria and they needed as a drug and the Science Community was pitching in and would be allowed the patience to become a part of this and he said yes. So boston in psychopathic was one of the halfdozen that allowed them to affect the patients for a drug test host this is the malaria project. What were the results . It really started in 1940 before it the of orient before the United States entered. Before normandy when we were envisioning getting to hitler threw his underbelly it took awhile but we do we would be in the South Pacific where malaria was everywhere so they proposed if this project far. The germans have come up with a project to find a drug for malaria and we should model that here. They can use their Drug Companies and their compounds may infect them then test them and we should do that here. But the project itself did not start until the War Department had a problem we were in the guadalcanal on the verge of losing that island which was strategic and though War Department opened the spigot. The leaders of the departments started to attend the meetings and said we need you to expand this program we need the drug and all the companies involved. So you saw a small project turned into the largest medical effort of the war the number one priority to find a cure for malaria. Host Mental Health patients . Guest so to understand why this was acceptable, if you need to understand the history of malaria and syphilis. To diseases that worked against one another. Soap and austrian scientist and had surmised the hon and then to said they would be better off . Where they could treat the mentalhealth issues just to see if he could get the flyers fibers over. But he thought it make to the etiquette candidate for the kind that you picked up in europe. It all the feverish to go high enough then 37 you could cure the patient of the neural syphilis those that led affected brain cells and cause brain damage it could kill the simplest things and they would walk away when a deeper secured. It was a standard treatment. He won the nobel prize for late stage syphilis. And to the besides the opportunity to discuss parasites you could not grow them in a petri dish like you could with sarah a effective person. The State Hospitals that iran malaria therapy had ample number numbers of people infected so it was an innocent for stage he would just go to the State Hospitals that were running some of their b2 draw their blood and steady parasites. It did not take long for a the dynamic to flips of the Malaria Community would pay for the treatment of this State Hospital so they could use the patients to study and test drugs. Win the war broke this is the state that these two foul and warning them to not overstep your bounds and only use buyback. It is not a reliable treatment and he warned them not to use mosquitos for the infection because when you invite an infection by way of mesquita you invite every stage of that parasite into the body not just the blood stage. If i took blood from you and you had malaria and injected into another patient the patient would have just that stage a few isolated them in day it never got did it would not spread it is beyond the liver stage city will not walk away to have another outbreak of parasites and pass it on. Live field of malaria did not find these restrictions convenience so you needed to have the mosquito and you needed to use all the parasites that cause malaria in win the war broke jury in the United States developed these projects that use all phases of the parasites and all types to understand how to come up with the treatment. Host when you discover that memo Karen Masterson did you have any concept it would grow into a the malaria project . No. I didnt i thought i was writing an article that i would pitch to a magazine i wondered if i found another tuskegee experiment where where the black men were not treated for syphilis because they were not told they had it so researchers could observe the of life cycle of this disease which was horrendous because there was a treatment for syphilis at the time. I thought i had Something Like that. But i spent time with researchers to spend time with the cdc and especially with those you were active and long enough to do their research on a State Hospital patients because even after the war with late stage syphilis so they could study the parasites and he made me understand that this is a very nuanced project. There were many considerations that is needed to understand. Once they spend time with him there was no way in a magazine like the peace and i had book writing friends who said to have a book here is you need to write a book. I would say give me some time. I continued my trips to the archives through 500 boxes and once i saw this story and have a narrative art i is understood that had a book. I of an agent and we have a publisher and i rode it. Is this written so it layamon could understand . Is written for them a man and is a narrative. I am a storyteller. So i chose three scientists to focus my main the the talkedabout it is a very interesting man said thank go up and let he said repeatedly by accident of what i could identify with he ended up getting a fellowship to steadied the swamps that if someone whos steady is fresh water. In that was run by sen you a hint because the malaria burden in the south was so horrendous that no one felt thered be any Economic Growth in the Southern States because of the disease. So to go into this once to kill a couple snakes but that was his injection introduction because he became one of the few experts so the rockefeller for irrigation and u. S. Public Health Records call on him every summer and from biology he had but then you can see halide didnt become an expert in the most innovative features is when the world went to war. Host what is your job here at Johns Hopkins . Guest i teach many courses but those for science students and one that is specifically geared to Public Health. I asked them it is a workshop and i said that out throughout the city of baltimore with a half to find stories and get on the ground and work with communities. A lot of them will look at hiv or heroin addiction because fox were is the heroin capital of the country. With the public topic there want to explore and help them develop their ideas into a story with a park site in the future is there one to tell stories about their research they have the skills to do it. Host have you had malaria . Guest no. I have not. City down at cdc with my fellowship we would chop the heads off mosquitos that were infected. We could pick it up from the monkey house where is the monkeys were infected with malaria and they would bring back to the lab to put them in incubator and he said i hate to see that. I did not understand them well enough yet because i didnt know the different species so i attracted because i did not want to malaria i smacked though i got it. I did see his mouth curl that blends with an infectious mosquito not until four years later that i was studying monkey malaria that i realized what we were working with could not jump species so he was having fun with me so that would not have the effective three infected me. Of fred had come down with it we were told that the clinic we got her there justintime because she would is showing early signs of cerebral malaria that can kill you. The one product that came out of this project that we stole from the germans but it is still in use today. In fact most of the drugs used today were created during the project. So when ed drug becomes ineffectual because of resistance scientist at walter reed will go back to those 14,000 compounds made during the war ample another one off the shelf to study it there are a dozen that showed promise that there was a Research Money to develop them as the walter reed scientists go back to make them into different analogs then hand them off to the pharmaceutical companies and tell those the committee effectual with resistance then restart over except for are a chinese herb that is the one that did not come from the project. Host how has your friends life changed since she had malaria . Is their limitations . No. She is fully recovered. It does that have a liver stage in the african malaria. So it cannot survive well. That kind you find in asia and south america but there is the reason of a blood mutation but you have an intense infection but when it clears it is gone and it doesnt come back. Host the malaria project the u. S. Governments secret mission to find a miracle cure booktv is on vacation at Johns Hopkins university. [applause] thank you very rich for all the folks hear it is an honor to speak tonight a few miles from the saratoga a battlefield where on the october 7th, 1777 when the the most important and consequential battles of world history. The end of giants is a book about people come with the man who fought the revolutionary war defeated the military, and made possible the establishment in north america of a government based on the values of the individual liberty and human rights and i will start by reading a short selection from the book and the story of the revolutionary war i look back before the war with the characters he played a major role. So this is from chapter one page one about 20 years before the revolution began