Authors: Laurie Garrett, Jonathan M. Mann
ISBN-13: 9780140250916, ISBN-10: 0140250913
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Date Published: October 1995
Edition: Reprint
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.
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.
Preface | ||
Introduction | 3 | |
1 | Machupo: Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever | 13 |
2 | Health Transition: The Age of Optimism - Setting Out to Eradicate Disease | 30 |
3 | Monkey Kidneys and the Ebbing Tides: Marburg Virus, Yellow Fever, and the Brazilian Meningitis Epidemic | 53 |
4 | Into the Woods: Lassa Fever | 71 |
5 | Yambuku: Ebola | 100 |
6 | The American Bicentennial: Swine Flu and Legionnaires' Disease | 153 |
7 | N'zara: Lassa, Ebola, and the Developing World's Economic and Social Policies | 192 |
8 | Revolution: Genetic Engineering and the Discovery of Oncogenes | 222 |
9 | Microbe Magnets: Urban Centers of Disease | 234 |
10 | Distant Thunder: Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Injecting Drug Users | 260 |
11 | Hatari: Vinidogodogo (Danger: A Very Little Thing): The Origins of AIDS | 281 |
12 | Feminine Hygiene (As Debated, Mostly, by Men): Toxic Shock Syndrome | 390 |
13 | The Revenge of the Germs, or Just Keep Inventing New Drugs: Drug-Resistant Bacteria, Viruses, and Parasites | 411 |
14 | Thirdworldization: The Interactions of Poverty, Poor Housing, and Social Despair with Disease | 457 |
15 | All in Good Haste: Hantaviruses in America | 528 |
16 | Nature and Homo sapiens: Seal Plague, Cholera, Global Warming, Biodiversity, and the Microbial Soup | 550 |
17 | Searching for Solutions: Preparedness, Surveillance, and the New Understanding | 592 |
Afterword | 621 | |
Notes | 623 | |
Acknowledgments | 729 | |
Index | 731 |