Hey, it's Flora Lichtenen, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Growing up, Daisy Hernandez was told that her aunt had become ill from eating a bad apple.

She watched as her aunt became sicker and sicker and didn't learn until years later that her aunt was sick with Shagas disease,

aka the kissing bug disease, named after the biting insect that transmits it.

The disease affects around 8 million people, and yet you have probably never heard of it.

Daisy's book, The Kissing Bug, A True Story of a Family and Insect and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease is Science Friday's first book club pick of the year.

And it tells the story of her aunt who died of Shagas and how a disease that affects so many people can be so neglected.

Daisy, welcome to Science Friday.

And just to get going, why did you decide to take this on? Thank you so much for having me. I wanted to write this book because we grew up not knowing

another family that was affected by Shaga's disease. And so I thought there would surely be a book

out there already.

And when I started searching, I didn't find that book.

And I felt like I wanted to contribute to the conversation.

I wanted to create a book that I wish I would have had when I was 15 years old, that I wish my auntie would have had.

I wanted to raise awareness for sure among all

Americans and medical providers in general. So I thought I was maybe just writing an article

and it became a book. The book centers on your, your aunt Dora. Tell us a little bit what

she was like. She was a vibrant personality. She was somebody who

dreamed of always being a schoolteacher. She grew up in a family of 12 children in Columbia and ended up

here in the U.S. ended up actually pursuing that dream of being a public school teacher.

She also had strong ideas about what was proper for a young girl to say and to do,

and a lot of that centered around very traditional ideas of girlhood from her own experiences.

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