Product Details
Germ Warriors: Stories of Men and Women Fighting the World's Worst Plagues

Germ Warriors: Stories of Men and Women Fighting the World's Worst Plagues
From Da Capo Press

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Product Description

When epidemiologists are called in to help contain a hot zone they often possess only the barest details of what the sickness in question actually does, how it is communicated to its victims, and where it originated. Solving those mysteries takes real personal courage combined with the ability to think clearly and creatively while locked in a life-or-death battle with the unknown. Adrenaline's Germ Warriors includes many of the best-known journalists currently writing about contagion. From Richard Preston on smallpox ("The Demon in the Freezer") to Edward Marriott on fighting the bubonic plague, from Michael Shnayerson and Mark Plotkin on drug-resistant bacteria to Ken Alibek pulling back the curtain on the Soviet bio-weapons program, from Peter Moore on new rogue diseases to Marilyn Thompson on anthrax, this is a fascinating collection of the best, most gripping writing about one of the greatest challenges we are facing in the new century. Medical detection doesn't get any better or more relevant than this.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1341738 in Books
  • Published on: 2003-12-29
  • Released on: 2003-12-10
  • Original language: English
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 364 pages

Customer Reviews

Not quite what the doctor ordered, and not as advertised -3
I do not know where Amazon gets the descriptions they use, but this book has nothing on small pox, or on Soviet bio-weapons, or on anthrax, or rogue diseases or anything by Shnayerson and Plotkin. This book is 290 pages but because the Adrenaline Series has apparently changed format, it is smaller and the type coverage on the page is half an inch thinner than usual, so if published in the old format, this would be a thinner book. There are 11 selections in the book, and the strongest include an interesting story about treating Ebola in Africa, a very intersting piece on diagnosing a case of flesh-eating bacteria, good writing on salmonella and food poisoning (scary stuff - I may never eat again), and a story of tracking a case of Lassa Fever from Chicago back to Africa. Fortune Magazine weighs in with a pretty interesting story of what AIDS is doing to the economy of South Africa. But there are some weak entries that bog it down - a dull piece on the bubonic plague and a very academic study of how malaria is transmitted by mosquito. The excerpt on Mad Cow is about how it was first discovered over 40 years ago in New Guinea - slow and not too interesting. The article about AIDS is a very philosophical and sentimental journal written by a dying man - and could have been written as is no matter what he was dying of. And the short fiction by Poe is just wasted space. So bottom line - about half the book is really gripping, and half had me wanting to skip ahead. I think it would have been a stronger collection if a few of the advertised selections had been used. If diseases interest you this may be a good sampler, but if that isn't your passion you probably could pass on this book.