Richard Coker is an emeritus professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He is the author of From Chaos to Coercion: Detention and the Control of Tuberculosis (St Martin's Press, 2000), multiple chapters in edited books, around 300 research papers and his invited writing has also appeared in the Guardian. A doctor, he worked with HIV/AIDS patients in the early years of the pandemic as a consultant at St Mary's Hospital, London, and on tuberculosis and HIV control in London and New York City. He later led research on tuberculosis, HIV and other communicable diseases in the former Soviet Union for seven years, and Southeast Asia for twenty years. He has been interviewed by BBC News, CNN, BBC World Service, BBC's Today, Capital Radio, Dispatches, GLR, Newsroom South East, BBC's Horizon, Channel 4 News; and his work has featured in more than seventy international publications including Le Figaro, the Straits Times, the Guardian, the Independent and New Scientist.