All public health students should read this book for two reasons: first, for the in-depth story of the scientific investigation of the source of the epidemic; and second, for the story of the political resistance and barriers, both powerful and subtle,that Piarroux encountered.... The description of Piarroux's investigation is fascinating.

The CDC discouraged journalists from asking about the epidemic's origin, telling them that pinpointing the source was 'not productive,’ ‘not central,’ and would likely never happen. Its epidemiologists did provide a key detail early on, when they identified the strain in Haiti as having a recent South Asian origin―meaning it could have come from Nepal and not from South America, Africa, or anywhere else cholera was circulating at the time. The CDC refused to take environmental samples from around the [UN Peacekeepers] base or test the soldiers during the small window when doing either would have been worthwhile. All of this detailed in a damning new book by Ralph R. Frerichs called Deadly River..

Frerichs, a retired epidemiologist and professor emeritus of epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, has written a damning account of the political and health professional response to the cholera epidemic that broke out in Haiti in October 2010... He does so from an epidemiologist’s perspective and with a clear focus on the Haiti case. Yet, his account is written for and accessible to a wider readership and also highly relevant for students of global (health) politics.

Ralph Frerichs’s Deadly River is, in no small part, an object lesson on the manner in which maps make sense of chaos in the midst of complex world events.... Frerichs’s focus, and indeed his passion, lies with the microbial world and its periodic attacks on humankind.

Ralph R. Frerichs' compelling Deadly River tells the story of Haiti's 2010 cholera epidemic, the worst in recent history. The book is a detective story that documents how epidemiologists and others sought to quantify, decode, and combat cholera, and provides a firsthand look at the politics of medical humanitarianism.

It is beyond the scope of the present report to recount the analyses and conclusions of the various studies, but this task has been undertaken systematically in [Deadly River]. Its author, Ralph R. Frerichs, is Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at UCLA and the book provides a painstaking and even-handed assessment of the scientific debates that have taken place. For present purposes, it must suffice to note that the book concludes that the peacekeepers were responsible for bringing cholera. In doing so, it systematically vindicates the conclusions reached by one of the first international experts on cholera to investigate the outbreak in Haiti, Dr. Renaud Piarroux. It also deplores what it describes as a 'misinformation campaign to protect the UN and the peacekeeping program.'