While vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, Kris Newby was bitten by an unseen tick.
That one bite changed her life forever, pulling her into the abyss of a devastating illness that took ten doctors to diagnose and years to recover from: Newby had joined the ranks of the 400,000 Americans who are afflicted with Lyme disease each year.
As a science writer, she was driven to understand why this disease is so misunderstood and its patients so mistreated. This quest led her to Willy Burgdorfer, the Lyme microbe’s discoverer, who revealed that he had developed bug-borne bioweapons during the Cold War and believed that the Lyme epidemic was started by a military experiment gone wrong.
In a superb, meticulous work of narrative journalism, Bitten takes readers on a journey to investigate these claims, from tours of biological weapons facilities to interviews with biosecurity experts and microbiologists doing cutting-edge research, all the while uncovering darker truths about Burgdorfer. It also leads her to uncomfortable questions about why Lyme can be so difficult to both diagnose and treat, and why the government is so reluctant to classify chronic Lyme as a disease.
A gripping, infectious page-turner, Bitten will shed a terrifying new light on an epidemic that is exacting an incalculable toll on us, upending much of what we believe we know about it.
About Kris Newby
Kris Newby is an award-winning science writer and the senior producer of the Lyme disease documentary UNDER OUR SKIN, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was a 2010 Oscar semifinalist. Her book BITTEN won three international book awards for journalism and narrative nonfiction. She has two degrees in engineering: a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah and a master’s degree from Stanford University. She previously worked as a science/technology writer for Stanford Medical School, Apple, and other Silicon Valley companies. She is currently working on a second book. For more information go to https://www.krisnewby.com/bio.