New book: Tuberculosis should have taught us plague lessons

Most of us have heard the saying "those who don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it."

Science journalist Vidya Krishnan's latest book proves that point — painfully so.

Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History, which came out this month, draws parallels between nineteenth-century New York City and modern-day India.

And, Krishnan explains in an interview with NPR's Susan Brink, medical advances that could make up for the failure to improve living conditions are squandered.

All of this may sound tragic but distant to those of us in the West — but, she continues, it's not simply academic.

Read Krishnan's interview on NPR's website.

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