The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

by Laurie Garrett

Overview

Unpurified drinking water. Improper use of antibiotics. Local warfare. Massive refugee migration. Changing social and environmental conditions around the world have fostered the spread of new and potentially devastating viruses and diseases—HIV, Lassa, Ebola, and others. Laurie Garrett takes you on a fifty-year journey through the world's battles with microbes and examines the worldwide conditions that have culminated in recurrent outbreaks of newly discovered diseases, epidemics of diseases migrating to new areas, and mutated old diseases that are no longer curable. She argues that it is not too late to take action to prevent the further onslaught of viruses and microbes, and offers possible solutions for a healthier future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140250916
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/01/1995
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	768
Sales rank:	1,124,471
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 2.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Laurie Garrett, science and health writer, winner of the Pulitzer, Polk, and Peabody Prizes, is the author of The Coming Plague and Betrayal of Trust.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
1. Machupo: Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever
2. Health Transition: The Age of Optimism—Setting Out to Eradicate Disease
3. Monkey Kidneys and the Ebbing Tides: Marburg Virus, Yellow Fever, and the Brazilian Meningitis Epidemic
4. Into the Woods: Lassa Fever
5. Yambuku: Ebola
6. The American Bicentennial: Swine Flu and Legionnaires' Disease
7. N'zara: Lassa, Ebola, and the Developing World's Economic and Social Policies
8. Revolution: Genetic Engineering and the Discovery of Oncogenes
9. Microbe Magnets: Urban Centers of Disease
10. Distant Thunder: Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Injecting Drug Users
11. Hatari: Vinidogodogo (Danger: A Very Little Thing): The Origins of AIDS
12. Feminine Hygiene (As Debated, Mostly, by Men): Toxic Shock Syndrome
13. The Revenge of the Germs, or Just Keep Inventing New Drugs: Drug-resistant Bacteria, Viruses, and Parasites
14. Thirdworldization: The Interactions of Poverty, Poor Housing, and Social Despair with Disease
15. All in Good Haste: Hantaviruses in America
16. Nature and Homo sapiens: Seal Plague, Cholera, Global Warming, Biodiversity, and the Microbial Soup
17. Searching for Solutions: Preparedness, Surveillance, and the New Understanding
Afterword
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

Documenting the plausible threat of major new worldwide epidemics, as well as eruptions of recently discovered diseases, Garrett's gripping and frightening report sounds a wake-up call to the planet. Wars, sexual promiscuity, inept public-health efforts and development schemes that disrupt ecosystems are some of the factors she says contribute to the alarmingly rapid mutation of viruses, the pandemics sweeping through the animal world, and the spread of human diseases to new areas. Health and science writer for New York Newsday, Garrett discusses the tremendous increase in AIDS and HIV infection across Asia, outbreaks of the incredibly lethal Ebola virus in Africa, and the spread of diseases via human technologies (such as tampons contributing to toxic shock syndrome). Her first-rate investigation concludes with a call for a global early warning system to rapidly detect new diseases and drug-resistant strains. BOMC, QPB and Natural Science Book Club selections.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Medical journalist Garrett presents a history of epidemiology in a format that is educational, moving, and terrifying. She skillfully illustrates the role of ecology, politics, and economics in worldwide healthcare and uses numerous examples to emphasize the need for a global perspective in the management of disease. Yellow fever, malaria, ebola, lassa fever, AIDS, legionnaires' disease, toxic shock syndrome-she discusses in depth the search for the causes of these and many other diseases. The tranquil days following the discovery of antibiotics are gone as drug-resistant strains of disease-causing organisms continue to reappear. The message is clear: we must drop our complacency and learn from past epidemics or face the consequences. An extremely readable style and exhaustive notes make this fascinating reading for general readers and scholars alike. Highly recommended. [See also Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, LJ 8/94.-Ed]-Tina Neville, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib.

Library Journal

Based on international field research and extensive interviews with experts in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology and medicine, Garrett (health and science writer and former science correspondent for National Public Radio) investigates newly identified viruses such as HIV, HIV-II and the mysterious Ebola; old viruses in new locations, such as hantavirus and dengue; and mutant strains of old diseases--and examines the relationship between the spread of disease, sociology, politics and science. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"A sober, scary book that not only limns the dangers posed by emerging diseases but also raises serious questions about two centuries worth of Enlightenment beliefs in science and technology and progress . . . A frightening vision of the future and a deeply unsettling one." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"This brilliant book conveys a grim message: that we may be entering a period of dramatic change in our relationship with infectious disease . . . Other 'emerging disease' books have appeared on these shelves as well, including some sizable volumes, but Garrett's is the intellectual heavyweight of the collection . . . I found it hard to put the book down." —Peter Godfrey-Smith, Boston Review

"Like her role model Rachel Carson, whose 1962 Silent Spring woke up society to environmental poisoning, Garrett aims to dispel social and political complacency about the threat of old, new, and yet-unknown microbial catastrophes in a global ecology that links Bujumbura, Bangkok, and Boston more closely than anyone appreciates." —Richard A. Knox, The Boston Globe

"Garrett has done a brilliant job of putting scientific work into layman's language, and the scariness of medical melodramas is offset by the excitement of scientific detection." —The New Yorker

"The book is ambitious, but it succeeds...[its] scope is encyclopedic, its mass of detail startling." —The Economist

"Garrett brilliantly develops her theme that rapidly increasing dangers are being ignored. Her investigations have taken over a decade to complete, and her findings are meticulously discussed and distilled." —Richard Horton, The New York Review of Books

"Encyclopedic in detail, missionary in zeal, and disturbing in its message...The Coming Plague makes fascinating if troubling reading. It is an important contribution to our awareness of human ecology and the fragility of the relative biological well-being that many of us enjoy. Garrett has mastered an extraordinary amount of detail about the pathology, epidemiology, and human events surrounding dozens of complex diseases. She writes engagingly, carrying her themes as well as the reader's interest from outbreak to outbreak." —Los Angeles Times

"Absorbing...the insights into the personalities and the stories behind new infectious diseases are fascinating. I have the greatest admiration for Laurie Garrett." —Abraham Verghese, M.D., author of In the Heartland: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of AIDS

"A masterpiece of reporting and writing, The Coming Plague is the best and most thorough book on the terrifying emergence of new plagues. The level of detail is amazing, with fascinating portraits of the so-called 'disease cowboys,' the doctors and scientists who fight infectious diseases on the front lines. The Coming Plague is a must read for anyone interested in the biological fate of the human species." —Richard Preston, New York Times-bestselling author of The Hot Zone

From the Publisher