The Panic Virus

A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

By: Seth Mnookin

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

The Panic Virus is a gripping scientific detective story about how grassroots radicals, snake-oil salesmen, and cynical journalists have perpetrated the biggest health-scare hoax of all time. It explores what happens when the media treats all viewpoints as equally valid, regardless of facts, from parents who are convinced that vaccines caused their children's autism to right-wing radicals who believe that climate change is a myth. It also explains how the endless quantity of information available online has radicalized partisans by fueling their tendency to filter out anything that doesn't reinforce their way of thinking.

Tens of millions of dollars have been wasted appeasing denialists who think the government is perpetrating a health "holocaust" on children. Declining vaccination rates have caused recent outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, and Hib - and children around the country are dying as a result.

Like works by Oliver Sacks and Richard Dawkins, The Panic Virus uses everyday experiences to show how science affects our lives. Listeners will learn why definitive proof in science is virtually impossible, how rational decision-making is ruled by emotion, and why paupers' graves in the 1880s led to an outbreak of throat cancer in the 1950s.

©2011 Seth Mnookin (P)2011 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A riveting and important chronicle of one life-and-death realm in which passionate, panicky belief has dangerously trumped reason---and put millions of children at risk." (Kurt Andersen, author of Heyday)

You'll Find Truth in Science

What did you love best about The Panic Virus?

Well written, used facts to back his points, and chose a good narrator! I felt that the narrator was sitting here having the discussion on vaccinations right next to me.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The best and most tragic point in the book was near the end when the writer talks of two parents that lost their child due to whooping cough, a sickness that should not be here any longer, due to other parents choosing not to vaccinate their child.

Which character – as performed by Dan John Miller – was your favorite?

Mr. Miller read this book well and kept me interested and I had no problems understanding what the writer was trying to convey.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Like I said earlier, one of the later chapters of the parents loss of a child due to others not vaccinating their child.

Any additional comments?

Well written and narrated book. If you want to hear the history and facts about vaccinations, this is the book to go to.

Not Neutral to the Title

I am empathetic for any parents who have a special needs child because I have a disability and my parents also saw out treatment, but at what point should they accept the abilities of their son and daughter and let them be. It seems like Autism is always in the mainstream and is the only disability that is known to the public. Instead of accepting the disorder, most families are trying to find a magic wand to cure the disability.

Having a disability is different than having a disease.

Unlike having an infection, there are no antibiotics for being disable. Knowing someone who is disable, you learn to accept their physical and/or mental limitations and move on with their lives. That being said, I was disappointed in this book. There is no doubt there are side effects in being vaccinated, but 95% of what was presented in "The Panic Virus" was all about Autism.

There are other disorders that the pharmaceutical companies can cause, but very few was in this book. It just seemed like that the author was being paid by advocates for Autism and wasn't neutral to the title.

It felt like a scare tactic of being vaccinated, but science has proven of being immunized has inoculated the common diseases that once plague the world.