In this groundbreaking new book, award-winning scientist Muhammad H. Zaman—an expert on how disease affects vulnerable communities—delves into the history of U.S. epidemics, from the earliest cases of syphilis, cholera, and smallpox to AIDS and the recent COVID crisis, to show how the country’s response (or lack thereof) to infectious disease in America is part of a critical, time-tested strategy in America’s toolbox of oppression of the weak, the poor, and the non-white.

In the vein of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Dorothy Roberts’s Fatal Invention, Infected is the epic story of white supremacists, compromised doctors, racist politicians, and the heroes who challenged them. Zaman shows that exclusionary immigration acts, the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, the development of biological weapons, the early response to the AIDS epidemic, the fake CIA vaccination campaign in Pakistan, and the xenophobic rhetoric sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic are all parts of the same deeper story—one of medical science twisted in the service of social control.

This is a story that continues today, on Native American reservations, in foreign zones occupied by the U.S. military, and on our borders, where asylum seekers are denied lifesaving medicines. Melding cutting-edge science and history, Infected presents infection as a key to understanding our recent past, present, and future.

A paradigm-shifting exploration of the politics of health around the world, by an award-winning scientist

“Zaman’s optimism . . . is welcome. . . . His sense of urgency is irresistible.”
—The Wall Street Journal on Muhammad H. Zaman’s The Biography of Resistance

Since the dawn of germ theory, from cholera to sleeping sickness, syphilis to COVID-19, the history of infectious diseases and related policies has shown us how vulnerable communities have been impacted in the name of research or disease control.

In Infected, award-winning scientist and author Muhammad H. Zaman navigates the exceptionalism of infection and tells the epic story of compromised doctors and administrators, and the heroes who challenged them. It is a tale describing how exclusionary immigration acts, the Tuskegee syphilis study and the Guatemala experiments, the development of biological weapons, the fake vaccination campaign in Pakistan, and the rhetoric around the recent pandemic are all parts of the same deeper story—one of infectious diseases intertwined with power and politics.

This is a story that continues today, in poor nations that have long been impacted by the foreign policies of the rich, and at borders, where asylum seekers are denied necessary medical treatment regardless of who is in power. Melding science and history, Infected presents infection as a key to understanding our recent past, present, and future.