Sign in with FacebookAndy's Reviews > Lifeblood: How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time
Lifeblood: How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time
by Alex Perry
by Alex Perry
This is a puff piece glorifying one rich guy and his "business" approach to fighting malaria. The book hops all over the place without a real story or a logical thesis.
No proof is given of what the rich guy has actually accomplished, just some wishful accounting of potential results in terms of making countries malaria-free. No investigation of what has worked in countries that did recently go malaria-free.
The title suggests that malaria is all about killing mosquitoes, but that is misleading. After all, we have plenty of mosquitoes in the U.S. but have not had malaria for a long time.
It's not clear what the lauded "business approach" means because what they describe doing is giving away millions of malaria nets, and that's fine, but that's pure charity, not business.
A much better book for understanding malaria is The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria
by Randall M. Packard. For recent developments in malaria, a better book is The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
by Sonia Shah.
No proof is given of what the rich guy has actually accomplished, just some wishful accounting of potential results in terms of making countries malaria-free. No investigation of what has worked in countries that did recently go malaria-free.
The title suggests that malaria is all about killing mosquitoes, but that is misleading. After all, we have plenty of mosquitoes in the U.S. but have not had malaria for a long time.
It's not clear what the lauded "business approach" means because what they describe doing is giving away millions of malaria nets, and that's fine, but that's pure charity, not business.
A much better book for understanding malaria is The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria
by Randall M. Packard. For recent developments in malaria, a better book is The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years
by Sonia Shah.
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Andrea
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rated it 2 stars
Jan 16, 2012 08:00am
I agree so far; I haven't finished the book yet. I thought the human interest side was okay to begin with, but I was expecting more info on the actual disease and more cutting edge approaches. So far, it's been a disappointment. I don't need to read about leather seats in a private jet.
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