Jennifer Fisher Wilson | Jun 10, 2001 | 9 min read
In the early 1990s, just after Operation Desert Storm, scientists from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research traveled to the lower Amazon basin to conduct trials with a new antimalarial medication. They found an epidemic in full swing among a camp of gold miners. The scientists labored in the humidity of the tropical rain forest to set up a clinic. But rumors slowed their progress: People said the researchers planned to develop medications, not for Brazilians, but rather for U.S. forces who