Deadliest Enemy

Our War Against Killer Germs

By: Michael T. Osterholm, Mark Olshaker, Michael T. Osterholm PhD MPH

Narrated by: Jamie Renell

Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

We are facing an overwhelming army of deadly, invisible enemies. We need a plan - before it's too late.

Unlike natural disasters, whose destruction is concentrated in a limited area over a period of days, and illnesses, which have devastating effects but are limited to individuals and their families, infectious disease has the terrifying power to disrupt everyday life on a global scale, overwhelming public and private resources and bringing trade and transportation to a grinding halt.

In today's world, it's easier than ever to move people, animals, and materials around the planet, but the same advances that make modern infrastructure so efficient have made epidemics and even pandemics nearly inevitable. And as outbreaks of Ebola, MERS, yellow fever, and Zika have demonstrated, we are woefully underprepared to deal with the fallout. So what can - and must - we do in order to protect ourselves from mankind's deadliest enemy?

Drawing on the latest medical science, case studies, policy research, and hard-earned epidemiological lessons, Deadliest Enemy explores the resources and programs we need to develop if we are to keep ourselves safe from infectious disease. The authors show how we could wake up to a reality in which many antibiotics no longer cure, bioterror is a certainty, and the threat of a disastrous influenza pandemic looms ever larger. Only by understanding the challenges we face can we prevent the unthinkable from becoming the inevitable.

Deadliest Enemy is high scientific drama, a chronicle of medical mystery and discovery, a reality check, and a practical plan of action.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2017 Michael T. Osterholm (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Osterholm and Olshaker calmly show us that Mother Nature is the 'greatest bioterrorist of them all.' Marshaling solid scientific evidence, they question why we have spent billions on the 'war on terror' and virtually nothing for an inevitable calamity that will kill millions. This stunning book is a clarion call to mount a Manhattan Project 2.0 that would prepare for the coming global pandemic. Someone should listen." (Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and coauthor of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer)

"As a former governor responsible for the welfare and health of my state, and a former United States Senator concerned with national security, I applaud Deadliest Enemy as a chilling and important wakeup call. Not only is it a fascinating human story and medical detective drama, it lays out the great public health challenges facing humanity and the actions that need to be initiated or enhanced to avert their life or death consequences." (Bob Graham, former governor of Florida, US senator, and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee)

"Deadliest Enemy is a lucid and concise account of how the battle against deadly germs is in many ways the most important war of all. Deadliest Enemy deftly melds authoritative science with a gripping narrative to tell what is arguably the most important story of our era." (Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst and author of United States of Jihad)

chilling scenarios now all too real with covid-19

Several chapters in the book about SARS
and MERS . Chilling scenerios are playing out now.. just as predicted in this book!

This book was a Prophecy of this Springs events

Wow this is everything we are dealing with right now with Coronovirus knowledge is power I hope we survive this. The world will never be the same. Amazing Medically based read.

An excellent explanation of the infectious disease threats that we face

... not to mention that the author also correctly predicts the current Covid pandemic, right down to the phases the USA would go through.

Highly recommend.

Insanely informative, a "must read"

This book packs so much information into one book. Foreshadowing abounds... you'll walk away with a greater understanding of just how fragile our world truly is.

Osterholm nailed it!

This was a bit scary given the situation we are in now. Seems like Mr. Osterholm seen this coming a few years ago.

If you want to learn how this Covid-19 got here...

Learned a lot about infectious disease! Great book on history, stories, science, and our possible future!

Lots of Information

Wow, this book covers a lot of different diseases and infections. I did come to one major conclusion after listening to it and that is, bats and birds and mice and mosquitoes are a constant plague upon this Earth and are the causes of a lot of sickness around the world. I'm not big on the extermination/extinction of species but the human race might want to look into better control of these nasty disease ridden "monsters" that spread these infliction's and try to figure out a better way of co-existing with these destroyers of civilizations.

This may be the most important book you read!

Author Michael Osterholm is one of America's leading infectious disease epidemiologists. He has been sounding the pandemic alarm for years, not as a kook, but as a scientist who knows what he's talking about. This book, published in March 2017 contains a scenario which predicts our current COVID-19 crisis almost to a 'T'!
Osterholm details the world's infectious disease fight over his career (beginning before 1980) and includes HIV/AIDS, Ebola, SARS, MERS, and more. He also lays out specific steps he believes the world must take to prevent further pandemics.
I implore everyone to read this book! More importantly, when we get beyond this current COVID-19 crisis, we CANNOT go back to business as usual. America and the world MUST learn a big lesson from the Coronavirus outbreak and begin to address potential public health epidemics in a meaningful and urgent way with very significant resources. In 2019 (one year), the world spent $1,822,000,000,000 (that's 1.8 trillion dollars per Wikipedia) on defense (armies, weapons, research, etc.). A tiny fraction of that amount (1% would be $18 billion) annually could, in a few years, make the world significantly safer from future pandemics, as well as create vaccinations for the 47 known infectious diseases with no current prevention. Sanity needs to set in soon!

Again, please, please read "Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs". (Or one of the handful of other good recent books on this subject.)

Osterholm Rocks!

If only leaders had read this book and listened when it was written. We would be in a far different place today.

Great Insights.

I wasn't sure what to expect from a book about virology during the pandemic. Holy Cow! The book does such a good job making the topic interesting while also being informative and even helpful. The clear suggestions and hesitantly optimistic tone was a great balance that didn't take away from the message. I cannot recommend this enough!