2002 Science in Society Journalism Awards

Book

Jon Cohen

Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine

W.W. Norton & Company

Description:

Jon Cohen, contributing editor, Science, took top honors in the book category for Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001). Engaging, well researched, and well written, the book skillfully shows the tug-of-war between science and society in the search for an AIDS vaccine. It’s an important book, not simply because AIDS is such an important research topic, but because society needs to learn from the mistakes and successes of what has, so far, been an unsuccessful search for a vaccine. Cohen shows that this saga has impact on whether science is going to remain relevant in the future when big problems arise.

Biography:

Jon Cohen has covered infectious diseases for 15 years, traveling extensively through the United States, Europe, Africa, Mexico and Thailand.

Cohen began writing for Science in 1990, becoming one of the world’s leading HIV/AIDS reporters. In addition to reporting on a wide range of scientific and medical topics for Science, Cohen has done in-depth, investigative stories about the National Institutes of Health, biodefense, tobacco industry funding of science, the troubled vaccine industry, credit battles, the genomics revolution, and the science press itself.

He also has written for the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Talk, Discover, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Smithsonian, Slate, the New Republic, Surfer, and other publications. Cohen in 1998 received a Sloan Foundation grant to complete Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine, which was published by W.W. Norton in January 2001.

His 1997 Science article about the rise and fall of an AIDS research program in the former Zaire won the international health reporting award from the Pan American Health Organization. From 1986-1990 he was senior editor at the City Paper in Washington, D.C.

Cohen earned a B.A. in 1981 from the University of California, San Diego, where he majored in science writing. Cohen lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, with his wife, a TV documentary producer, and their three children.

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