Biography of Resistance

The Epic Battle Between People and Pathogens

By: Muhammad H. Zaman

Narrated by: Kyle Tait

Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Award-winning Boston University educator and researcher Muhammad H. Zaman provides a chilling look at the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, explaining how we got here and what we must do to address this growing global health crisis.

In September 2016, a woman in Nevada became the first known case in the US of a person who died of an infection resistant to every antibiotic available. Her death is the worst nightmare of infectious disease doctors and public health professionals. While bacteria live within us and are essential for our health, some strains can kill us. As bacteria continue to mutate, becoming increasingly resistant to known antibiotics, we are likely to face a public health crisis of unimaginable proportions. “It will be like the great plague of the middle ages, the influenza pandemic of 1918, the AIDS crisis of the 1990s, and the Ebola epidemic of 2014 all combined into a single threat”, Muhammad H. Zaman warns.

The Biography of Resistance is Zaman’s riveting and timely look at why and how microbes are becoming superbugs. It is a story of science and evolution that looks to history, culture, attitudes and our own individual choices and collective human behavior. Following the trail of resistant bacteria from previously uncontacted tribes in the Amazon to the isolated islands in the Arctic, from the urban slums of Karachi to the wilderness of the Australian outback, Zaman examines the myriad factors contributing to this unfolding health crisis - including war, greed, natural disasters, and germophobia - to the culprits driving it: pharmaceutical companies, farmers, industrialists, doctors, governments, and ordinary people, all whose choices are pushing us closer to catastrophe.

Joining the ranks of acclaimed works like Microbe Hunters, The Emperor of All Maladies, and Spillover, A Biography of Resistance is a riveting and chilling tale from a natural storyteller on the front lines, and a clarion call to address the biggest public health threat of our time.

©2020 Muhammad H. Zaman (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Excellent read for a complicated issue

The author broke down the subject of antimicrobial resistance to make it easy to understand, not only the science but the history and socioeconomic intricacies associated with the subject.

The next Extinction Level Event may be inevitable.

But nothing catastrophic or immediate. But mother nature catching up to our frail bodies when bacteria becomes the dominant lifeform on earth. Exit homosapiens. Scary if we do not find the secret to combat these persistent creatures. We may simply run out of ways to stop them. Meaning, even a simple infection could mean a death sentence.
I hope the scientific world realizes how important this situation has become. There is no profit when the expense of treatment is pitted against saving human life. So drug companies are not interested in losing money and dropping the anti-biotic research.
I guess mother nature may adapt a few of us to defending these deadly fiends so we may not die out after all. Hopefully we will learn their secret before it is too late.

interesting journey

Feel like I'll need to go back and reread this book in hard copy. It was almost like taking a university course- but a very fascinating one.

Loved how it was broken up. Had some trouble following names of the people involved.

This is Something We All Need to Pay Attention to

The Biography of Resistance is a thoroughly researched book filled with information of how we have arrived at the edge of being overrun by antibiotic resistant bacteria. Muhammad Zaman does a deep dive into the history of antibiotics, and how bacteria are rapidly adapting to them. Additionally, he explains, while we need the research more than ever, why pharmaceutical companies are bailing out of antibiotic research and development. After reading this you'll have an excellent picture of what this this problem consists of and what needs to be done to overcome it.

Robust chronicle of the growth of AMR

I appreciated the indepth discussion regarding the growth of AMR; the highlights of which I was familiar with, not the background.

90% history, 10% how it works

Overall, it is a good summary of the history regarding antibiotics and the research surrounding it. It is not so much a description of how antibiotics work, which although it touches upon it, does not focus on it.

I do find this author struggles with leaving his opinion out of what should be objective facts. He touches upon a variety of topics and events in history and describes everything as if it boils down to a dichotomy of good vs evil. For example, when touching upon people who overdose on drugs, he describes how the drug makers deserve 100% of the blame, and drug users 0%. He then ends that story and moves onto the next one. Is that objective, or even necessary? Rather than ending at “this is what went wrong with the drug,” he goes beyond to “this is who I blame if this was me.” The author does this repeatedly, and seemingly inadvertently. When he does describe dissenting viewpoints, he does a really poor job giving an accurate description of what the other side must have felt, giving an overly simplistic “well they were evil so they disagreed” explanation.

There is plenty of information to be learned from this book, I just think it could have been edited better.

A Must Read

Fascinating material, and incredibly frightening. This should be required reading, especially for doctors. Highly recommend.

Humanity with all its brains could easily be taken out by microbes with no brains

Very informative and extremely detailed about the story of the rise of microbial resistance and its importance for all living creatures. Exceedingly enlightening.

Good medical education for everyone

This book is possibly even more relevant in these COVID-19 times. Although it deals almost entirely with bacteria and not viruses, this is still a very good book to educate readers about the complexities of immunology and medical research, and the paramount importance of science to solve our current problems.

Parts were interesting but narration not so much

I can’t really remember the book. Parts were informative and interesting. The reader/narrator was really terrible. I’m thinking it was artificial intelligence? It was so drone like. If it was a real human I apologize for being unkind.