For the past few months, doctors in Kings County, in California’s Central Valley, saw a small but higher than normal number of patients with lung disease. At first, patients presented with characteristics of pneumonia or bronchitis, like weakness or shortness of breath. But when placed on standard antibiotic treatment, they did not improve.

After their health further deteriorated, doctors determined that patients instead had a condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome, and the cause was something surprising, said Kings County public health officer Dr. Milton Teske.

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Writer Alexandra Fuller says there is a black sheep in every proper family. And when it came to her very proper family in England, there was never any doubt that black sheep was her father, Tim Fuller. He was bored by England, choosing instead to pursue a large, loose, scrappy life moving around Africa before settling down as a banana farmer in Zambia. He was curious, meandering, famous for drinking to excess and stubbornly stoic when life threw its worst at him.