Debbie Bookchin has been a journalist since 1979 and has won awards for her news, feature and investigative reporting. She has written for The Boston Globe, The Nation, The New York Times, and numerous other publications.
Jim Schumacher is a lawyer and writer whose work has appeared in Boston Magazine, Newsday, and The Atlantic Monthly, among others. Bookchin and Schumacher are married to each other and live in Vermont with their daughter.
The article on which The Virus and the Vaccine is based was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 2000 and earned a selection in the HarperCollins book Best Science Writing 2001.