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After four decades of assuming the the
conquest of infections diseases was "imminent,"
people on all continents now find themselves besieged by
microbes.
Tuberculosis, nearly eradicated from the
industrial world by the 1970s, claims three million lives
annually. Malaria, a disease the United States nearly vanquished
in the early 1960s, leads to more than 105 million deaths
a year. And by 1994 more than sixteen million adults and
one million children had been infected with the AIDS virus
-- a microbe unknown to humanity prior to 1981.
The water we drink is improperly purified;
the air we breathe potentially deadly; the food we eat possibly
poisonous. How can this be? What went wrong? And who are
the medical detectives in the vanguard of research, often
risking their lives amid political turmoil or pleading their
cause before bureaucratic indifference?
In this pioneering work of investigative
science journalism, Laurie Garrett takes readers on a harrowing
fifty-year journey through our battles with the microbes,
from the savannas of eastern Bolivia to the rain forests
of northern Zaire, from a Navajo reservation in the Four
Corners region of New Mexico to the urban poverty of the
South Bronx.
Based on extensive interviews with leading
experts in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology,
and medicine, as well as field research in sub-Saharan Africa,
Western Europe, Central America, and the United States,
The Coming Plague examines newly identified viruses
such as HIV and HIV-II, Lassa, and the mysterious Ebola
-- which under an electron microscope looks like a question
mark; old viruses in new locations, such as hantavirus,
yellow fever, and dengue; and mutant strains of diseases
such as cholera. Toxic Shock producing Staph and
Strep, and E. coli 0157:H7.
The Coming Plague uncovers the conditions
that favor -- even promote -- the mutation and spread of
deadly viruses and microbes -- from inadequate air circulation
on airplanes to the improper use of antibiotics and antivirals,
from high-intensity local warfare to massive refugee migrations
-- while pointing to solutions to prevent the onslaught
of disease.
Grippingly written, exhaustively researched,
and alarming in its implications, The Coming Plague
is destined to have an impact as profound as Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring.
Laurie Garrett is a health and science
writer for Newsday and New York Newsday. A
contributing author to AIDS in the World, edited
by Jonathan Mann, she was formerly a science correspondent
for National Public Radio and has written for The Washington
Post Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Omni,
among many other publications. Garrett researched The
Coming Plague as a fellow at the Harvard School of Public
Health. She lives in New York City.
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