A mother’s loss launches a global effort to fight antibiotic resistance

In November 2017, days after her daughter Mallory Smith died from a drug-resistant infection at the age of 25, Diane Shader Smith typed a password into Mallory’s laptop. “Diary Of A Dying Girl” excerpts Mallory Smith’s own writings, which chronicle her 13-year battle against an antibiotic-resistant lung infection. Since Mallory’s death, Shader Smith has made it her mission to get the people and organizations working on antimicrobial resistance to talk to one another. “The Global AMR Diary takes this approach and expands on it with a global lens — increasing the potential to get these critical messages to more people around the world.” An earlier version of Mallory’s diaries was published in 2019 as “Salt in My Soul: An Unfinished Life.” The new book includes entries that Shader Smith said she wasn’t ready to grapple with in the immediate aftermath of Mallory’s passing: ones addressing depression and private despair, concerns about relationships and body image issues complicated by chronic illness. The systems that bring new drugs to patients move slowly, Shader Smith said, and “Mallory might have been saved if they had moved faster.” Her mission now is to make sure that they do.