Seven Modern Plagues: and How We Are Causing Them

by Mark Jerome Walters

Overview

Epidemiologists are braced for the big one: the strain of flu that rivals the pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed at least 20 million people worldwide. In recent years, we have experienced scares with a host of new influenza viruses: bird flu, swine flu, Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, H5N1, and most recently, H5N7. While these diseases appear to emerge from thin air, in fact, human activity is driving them. And the problem is not just flu, but a series of rapidly evolving and dangerous modern plagues.
According to veterinarian and journalist Mark Walters, we are contributing to-if not overtly causing-some of the scariest epidemics of our time. Through human stories and cutting-edge science, Walters explores the origins of seven diseases: mad cow disease, HIV/AIDS, Salmonella DT104, Lyme disease, hantavirus, West Nile, and new strains of flu. He shows that they originate from manipulation of the environment, from emitting carbon and clear-cutting forests to feeding naturally herbivorous cows "recycled animal protein."
    
Since Walters first drew attention to these "ecodemics" in 2003 with the publication of Six Modern Plagues, much has been learned about how they developed. In this new, fully updated edition, the author presents research that precisely pinpoints the origins of HIV, confirms the link between forest fragmentation and increased risk of Lyme disease, and expands knowledge of the ecology of West Nile virus.
    
He also explores developments in emerging diseases, including a new chapter on flu, examining the first influenza pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968; a new tick-borne infection in the Mid-West; a second novel bird flu in China; and yet a new SARS-like virus in the Middle East.
    
Readers will not only learn how these diseases emerged but the conditions that make future pandemics more likely. This knowledge is critical in order to prevent the next modern plague.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610914659
Publisher:	Island Press
Publication date:	02/19/2014
Edition description:	Second Edition, Second Edition, Second Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Mark Jerome Walters, a professional journalist and veterinarian, is author of the widely acclaimed books A Shadow and a Song, Six Modern Plagues, and Seeking the Sacred Raven. His writing has been praised by The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Nature and numerous other scholarly and popular publications. Dr. Walters is director of the M.A. in Digital Journalism and Design at the University of South Florida. He has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard Medical School and an associate at Harvard's Center for Health and the Global Environment. He speaks frequently on the subject of communicating science to the lay public. Dr. Walters’ reporting and writing have taken him to Africa, Asia, throughout South America and Europe, Canada and to all fifty states. He received an undergraduate degree in English literature from McGill University; a master’s from the Columbia University School of Journalism; and a D.V.M. from Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Walters is a bluegrass music enthusiast and plays the 5-string banjo.

Table of Contents

Preface
 
Introduction
Chapter 1. The Dark Side of Progress: Mad Cow Disease
Chapter 2. A Chimp Called Amandine: HIV/AIDS
Chapter 3. The Travels of Antibiotic Resistance: Salmonella DT104
Chapter 4. Of Old Growth and Arthritis: Lyme Disease
Chapter 5. A Spring to Die For: Hantavirus
Chapter 6. A Virus from the Nile
Chapter 7. Birds, Pigs, and People: The Rise of Pandemic Flus
Epilogue: MERS-CoV and Beyond
 
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

"A fascinating work of ecological journalism, utterly convincing in its argument: that our health and the health of the environment are intimately linked, and we overlook that link at our peril."

Michael Pollan

"[Walters's] writing is excellent, light and in easy-to-read style, and the case history in each chapter is fascinating to read."

San Francisco Book Review

"Dr. Walters tells the tale of each disease like a detective story . . . . [The book] draws compelling, even disturbing, connections between disease and forces as implacable as population growth, deforestation, and modern lifestyles that consume fuel, meat, and acreage at an ever-growing pace."

New York Times

"Mark Jerome Walters weaves a fine thread of human disturbances through the quilt work of modern pandemics. After being drawn engagingly into the explosive symptoms of global environmental change, readers will come to understand that we have no choice but to make peace with nature."

Paul Epstein

"Refreshingly, this latest book explores the underlying shifts in human ecology and behavior that have potentiated recent epidemics…Walters achieves a balance between environmental science, clinical medicine, human interest, and social comment."

Nature Lib

"Refreshingly, this latest book explores the underlying shifts in human ecology and behavior that have potentiated recent epidemics…Walters achieves a balance between environmental science, clinical medicine, human interest, and social comment."

Nature

“Mark Jerome Walters weaves a fine thread of human disturbances through the quilt work of modern pandemics. After being drawn engagingly into the explosive symptoms of global environmental change, readers will come to understand that we have no choice but to make peace with nature.”

Center for Health and the Global Environment, Harvard Medical School - Paul Epstein

“A fascinating work of ecological journalism, utterly convincing in its argument: that our health and the health of the environment are intimately linked, and we overlook that link at our peril.”

author of Second Nature and The Botany of Desire - Michael Pollan