Through These Veins

By: Anne Marie Ruff

Narrated by: Anne Marie Ruff

In the coffee-growing highlands of Ethiopia, an Italian scientist on a plant-collecting expedition discovers a local medicine man dispensing an apparent cure for AIDS. As the medicine man’s teenage daughter reveals the plants behind the cure, their lives become irrevocably intertwined.

Through These Veins weaves together the dramatically different worlds of traditional healing, U.S. government funded AIDS research, and the pharmaceutical industry in an intensely personal, fast-paced tale of scientific intrigue and love, with both devastating and hopeful effect.

©2011 Anne Marie Ruff (P)2013 Cherry Hill Publishing

Critic reviews

"Enthralling. Through These Veins doesn't just call plants by their names; it sings their praises. There is no better case for conservation than this vivid account of how our well-being is so intertwined with the secret lives of plants." (Calestous Juma, director of science, technology, and globalization project at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and former executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity)

"A real pleasure. Very dramatic with a wide range of vivid descriptions and an important reminder of the relationship between science and nature." (Warren Olney, host of Public Radio International’s To The Point)