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An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases - and the panic and corruption that make them worse. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others - and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Pandemic explores the origin of epidemics, drawing parallels between the story of cholera - one of history's most disruptive and deadly pathogens - and the new pathogens that stalk humankind today, from Ebola and avian influenza to drug-resistant superbugs.
The most fatal virus known to science, rabies kills nearly 100 percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.
A young woman leaves a party with a wealthy US senator. The next morning her body is discovered in his car at the bottom of a pond. This is the damning true story of the death of campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick and of the senator - a 37-year-old Senator Ted Kennedy - who left her trapped underwater while he returned to his hotel, slept, and made phone calls to associates. Leo Damore's 1988 national best seller, originally entitled Senatorial Privilege, almost didn't make it into print after its original publisher, Random House, judged it too explosive....
The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia - but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. David Quammen tracks this subject around the world.
"This book will give you nightmares," cautions The New York Times. Richard Preston takes us inside the ongoing war against bioterrorism, investigating the anthrax attacks of October 2001 and the potential for a future bio-attack using smallpox or, worse yet, a new superpox virus resistant to all vaccines. "As exciting as the best thrillers, yet scarier by far, for Preston's pages deal with clear, present and very real dangers," says Publishers Weekly.
An inside account of the fight to contain the world's deadliest diseases - and the panic and corruption that make them worse. The Next Pandemic is a firsthand account of disasters like anthrax, bird flu, and others - and how we could do more to prevent their return. It is both a gripping story of our brushes with fate and an urgent lesson on how we can keep ourselves safe from the inevitable next pandemic.
Interweaving history, original reportage, and personal narrative, Pandemic explores the origin of epidemics, drawing parallels between the story of cholera - one of history's most disruptive and deadly pathogens - and the new pathogens that stalk humankind today, from Ebola and avian influenza to drug-resistant superbugs.
The most fatal virus known to science, rabies kills nearly 100 percent of its victims once the infection takes root in the brain. From Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the contemporary search for a lifesaving treatment, Rabid is a fresh, fascinating, and often wildly entertaining look at one of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.
A young woman leaves a party with a wealthy US senator. The next morning her body is discovered in his car at the bottom of a pond. This is the damning true story of the death of campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick and of the senator - a 37-year-old Senator Ted Kennedy - who left her trapped underwater while he returned to his hotel, slept, and made phone calls to associates. Leo Damore's 1988 national best seller, originally entitled Senatorial Privilege, almost didn't make it into print after its original publisher, Random House, judged it too explosive....
The emergence of strange new diseases is a frightening problem that seems to be getting worse. In this age of speedy travel, it threatens a worldwide pandemic. We hear news reports of Ebola, SARS, AIDS, and something called Hendra killing horses and people in Australia - but those reports miss the big truth that such phenomena are part of a single pattern. The bugs that transmit these diseases share one thing: they originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. David Quammen tracks this subject around the world.
"This book will give you nightmares," cautions The New York Times. Richard Preston takes us inside the ongoing war against bioterrorism, investigating the anthrax attacks of October 2001 and the potential for a future bio-attack using smallpox or, worse yet, a new superpox virus resistant to all vaccines. "As exciting as the best thrillers, yet scarier by far, for Preston's pages deal with clear, present and very real dangers," says Publishers Weekly.
In The Viral Storm, award-winning biologist Nathan Wolfe tells the story of how viruses and human beings have evolved side by side through history; how deadly viruses like HIV, swine flu, and bird flu almost wiped us out in the past; and why modern life has made our species vulnerable to the threat of a global pandemic. Wolfe's research missions to the jungles have earned him the nickname "the Indiana Jones of virus hunters," and here Wolfe takes listeners along on his groundbreaking and often dangerous research trips - to reveal the surprising origins of the most deadly diseases....
Bizarre illnesses and plagues that kill people in the most unspeakable ways. Obsessive and inspired efforts by scientists to solve mysteries and save lives. From The Hot Zone to The Demon in the Freezer and beyond, Richard Preston's best selling works have mesmerized readers everywhere by showing them strange worlds of nature they never dreamed of.
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.
Pandora's Lab takes us from opium's heyday as the pain reliever of choice to recognition of opioids as a major cause of death in the United States; from the rise of trans fats as the golden ingredient for tastier, cheaper food to the heart disease epidemic that followed; and from the cries to ban DDT for the sake of the environment to an epidemic-level rise in world malaria.
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn't stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon 34 more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-19th-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome - a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure.
The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
The universal instinct is to run from an outbreak of disease. These doctors run toward it. They always keep a bag packed. They seldom have more than 24 hours before they are dispatched. They are told only their country of destination and the epidemic they will tackle when they get there.
No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled ferocity and speed. It killed more people in 20 weeks than AIDS has killed in 20 years; it killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century.
In Venomous, molecular biologist Christie Wilcox investigates venoms and the animals that use them, revealing how they work, what they do to the human body, and how they can revolutionize biochemistry and medicine today. Wilcox takes us from the coast of Indonesia to the rainforests of Peru in search of the secrets of these mysterious animals.
Strictly off limits to the public, Plum Island is home to virginal beaches, cliffs, forests, ponds - and the deadliest germs that have ever roamed the planet. Lab 257 blows the lid off the stunning true nature and checkered history of Plum Island. It shows that the seemingly bucolic island in the shadow of New York City is a ticking biological time bomb that none of us can safely ignore.
Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."
In 1918, a world war raged, and a lethal strain of influenza circled the globe. In the midst of all this death, a bizarre disease appeared in Europe. Eventually known as encephalitis lethargica, or sleeping sickness, it spread worldwide, leaving millions dead or locked in institutions. Then, in 1927, it disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived. Asleep, set in 1920s and '30s New York, follows a group of neurologists through hospitals and asylums as they try to solve this epidemic and treat its victims - who learned the worst fate was not dying of it, but surviving it.
Alexandra Levitt is an expert in emergent diseases and public health issues. In this audiobook, she relays information and stories on the complex and fascinating subject of infectious microbes. Julie McKay narrates with a deliberate, clear voice, which will help listeners grasp the intricacies of the subject. The chapters are organized by microbial strains, and each chapter gives background on the known facts of the particular microbe, as well public policy and history related to it. While the subject of the audio is scientific, Levitt pries into all related areas: homicide, deadly outbreaks, and the successes and failures of those people working to stop these invisible, deadly killers. Listeners will be shocked and terrified by what they will learn - but ultimately grateful to be more informed.
Take a visit to the frontline as scientists fight to solve medical mysteries.
Despite advances in health care, infectious microbes continue to be a formidable adversary to scientists and doctors. Vaccines and antibiotics, the mainstays of modern medicine, have not been able to conquer infectious microbes because of their amazing ability to adapt, evolve, and spread to new places. Terrorism aside, one of the greatest dangers from infectious disease we face today is from a massive outbreak of drug-resistant microbes.
Deadly Outbreaks recounts the scientific adventures of a special group of intrepid individuals who investigate these outbreaks around the world and figure out how to stop them. Part homicide detective, part physician, these medical investigators must view the problem from every angle, exhausting every possible source of contamination. Any data gathered in the field must be stripped of human sorrows and carefully analyzed into hard statistics.
Author Dr. Alexandra Levitt is an expert on emerging diseases and other public health threats. Here she shares insider accounts she's collected that go behind the alarming headlines we've seen in the media: mysterious food poisonings, unexplained deaths at a children's hospital, a strange neurologic disease afflicting slaughterhouse workers, flocks of birds dropping dead out of the sky, and drug-resistant malaria running rampant in a refugee camp. Meet the resourceful investigators - doctors, veterinarians, and research scientists - and discover the truth behind these cases and more.
Although this book deals with a subject which I find endlessly fascinating, I must conclude it was a disappointment.
The writing is uninspired and sloppy. Perhaps the author would have benefited from a co-author with more varied and interesting prose style, or at least a keen-eyed editor. One glaring mess that stand out in my mind is when a patient with Hanta virus is described as "going into cardiac arrest, and shock." Pretty sure that should be the other way around, which I assume the author knows. Unfortunately, careless errors like that make it hard to lend much credence.
I'm not sure if the print version is any more enjoyable but this was not a good audio version. Narrated by Julie McKay, it is delivered like an instruction manual for assembling furniture. She spells out abbreviations and acronyms constantly ("U-S-A-M-R-I-I-D") instead of utilizing common pronunciations. Her pronunciation of medical terminology leaves a lot to be desired. These things may sound nit-picky, but anyone who reads a lot of audiobooks knows that a narrator can make or break a book!
There are many interesting books on epidemiology; this is just not one of them. "Beating Back the Devil" by Maryn McKenna is a much better book dealing with EIS, and "Spillover" by David Quammen is a really engaging read dealing specifically with diseases that cross over from animal reservoirs. I would recommend both of those a hundred times over "Deadly Outbreaks."
9 of 10 people found this review helpful
Julie McKay should stick to narrating children's books if she can't pronounce any better than in this book. Horrible. I have heard most of these cases before. The Philadelphia Legionnaires, the ice cream incident, etc. Very repetitive of other works.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful
One of my favorite topics for nonfiction books. However, it's REALLY hard to get past the narrator on this one. It seems to plod along in a very monotone delivery. Common acronyms are spelled out rather than pronounced phonetically (USAMRIID for example). The organization of the chapters seems to vary as well.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful
Any additional comments?
Do not be off-put by the acronym-laden sentences especially in the intro and first chapter. After experiencing the whole book, I can build a case for the "case study" chosen for chapter one. However, it builds slowly, failing to provide a true sense of the book. Be patient! So worth it! Every chapter is a true short story as adrenaline-pumping as the best (well-researched) medical thrillers. It is not necessary to read the chapters in order. Ultimately, this truly impressive book provides an excellent tutorial into microbiology & epidemiological research work. And is primarily shared in "page-turning" drama. Highly recommend! I immediately searched for another book by this author. I hope one is produced soon.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
When my son was in kindergarten, I read him Dian Dincin Buchman, PhD's "Deadly Medical Mysteries: How They Were Solved" (2000). It is a wonderful book of short, true detective stories, 10 to 20 pages each, in easy kids' words. My son loved it so much he took it to school on Book Share Day. One of his favorite stories was how Lyme disease was isolated by two mothers comparing their kids' symptoms in Lyme, Connecticut.
Alexandra Levitt, MD's "Deadly Outbreaks: How Medical Detectives Save Lives Threatened by Killer Pandemics, Exotic Viruses, and Drug-Resistant Parasites" (2013) has the much lengthier and complex story of how Centers for Disease Control scientist Willy Burgdorfer, MD (1925 - 2014) isolated a tick-borne bacteria that's now called Borrelia burgdorferi in his honor. It's an important lesson in thinking outside the box - well, actually, in Burgdorfer's case, thinking inside an entirely different box because his training was in Rickettsial diseases. Burgdorfer intuitively used an approach in culturing the bacterium that a non-Rickettsial trained scientist wouldn't have used, and it worked.
Burgdorfer's work on Lyme disease was long, exacting and necessary, which contrasts with the 1983 work done by epidemiologists Patrick McConnon and Roland Sutter. They were trying to source a malarial outbreak in Cambodian refugee camps that only affected men in their 20's and 30's. The scientists conducted interviews, drew blood, and puzzled endlessly over the cause. A casual conversation with a camp worker solved the mystery months later: the malarial men, who'd developed a drug resistant strain, were gun runners for the Khemer Rouge. They contracted the disease from jungle sources, not at camps. That's an important lesson that while medical research and analysis is important, boots on the ground, taking to people can be at least as important.
"Deadly Outbreaks" is also the history of the CDC's Epidemiologic Intelligence Services (EIS). It's a nifty program for statisticians, doctors, veterinarians, and epidemiologists to learn how to determine what's causing a disease and to track outbreaks. There's a thorough discussion of how applied statistics are used to track diseases. The story of sourcing Legionnaire's disease and locating its reservoir was a fascinating demonstration of statistics in action.
The book did tend to wander down tangents that are particularly hard to follow on an Audible book. And it got repetitive at times, perhaps because each chapter may be meant to stand alone.
The narration - well - parts of it drove me nuts. The narrator's voice was fine, but she mispronounced some biological words. One particular pet peeve: USAMRIID, for United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. The narrator says it as each individual letter. It's commonly pronounced as u-Sam-rid. Grammatically, either way is acceptable - but reading off the acronym letter-by-letter jars the narration.
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6 of 11 people found this review helpful
The story is very informative however, the narration is boring. It does help me sleep.
Great book but the speaker continually mis-pronounces scientific words to the point of being distracting
Super interesting! I had to double check when it hit the credits at the end, because I honestly couldn't believe it was over. Well researched, well presented, and well narrated. For the most part - the constant mispronunciation of the "Mayo" part of "Mayo Clinic" was grating, but that's probably because I live in Minnesota and am very familiar with Mayo. Other than that (very minor) detail, I honestly enjoyed the book and will likely listen to it again.