Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer who often writes about forensic science and poisonous chemicals, explores the sad cases of young women who have died while on vacation in Thailand, apparently from poisoning.
Blum wrote her Elemental blog post for Wired in the second person, as though she were directly addressing the mothers of the women who died:
“Your daughter, you’ve come to realize, died in a pattern that links too many other young women, a chain of suspected poisonings over the last few years. It starts with Jill St. Onge, 27, of Seattle, Washington, and Julie Bergheim, 22, of Drammen, Norway, who both died in May 2009 on the southern island of Koh Phi Phi. It continues with Sherifa Khalid, 24, of Kuwait, who died 12 hours after she spent a day on the same island in July of the same year. And it still continues.
“Not that this has ever been investigated with any apparent enthusiasm by the Thai authorities.”
Even the U.S. Embassy in Thailand is frustrated by the local government’s inadequate response to the deaths, Blum reports.
Blum also spoke about the unexplained deaths in a recent National Public Radio story.
You can read Blum’s full article here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/your-daughter-died/
