Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #229094 in Books
• Published on: 2009-12-23
• Released on: 2009-12-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .70" h x 5.28" w x 7.96" l, .60 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review
The world's worst bioterrorist isn't the murderer who put anthrax spores into mail in the fall of 2001; it's Mother Nature, writes Madeline Drexler in this survey of infectious diseases. They're all here, described in detail from historical, scientific, and public-health perspectives: AIDS, influenza, the West Nile virus, and so on. Secret Agents is a good primer on each. The best chapter--and the scariest--may be the last one, which covers bioterrorism of the human variety (i.e., not Mother Nature). "If bioterrorists released smallpox virus, it would ... become a global calamity within six weeks," she writes. That's not even the scariest possibility: "Researchers estimate that as little as one gram of aerosolized botox could kill more than 1.5 million people." And there are no easy preventive measures. "Of the 50 top bioweapon pathogens, only 13 have vaccines or treatments." Because of this, Drexler calls for a massive increase in public-health funding. Without that, our doctors and hospitals will be unprepared for a disaster they may be able to anticipate right now. --John Miller

From Library Journal
"The most menacing bioterrorist is Mother Nature herself," declares science journalist Drexler. She backs up her argument with stories of infectious microorganisms from ancient plagues to HIV. Antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis, newly recognized infectious agents like Creutzfeldt-Jakob-causing prions, and predictions of a postantibiotic era create a chilling story of a future in which surgery is no longer safe and treatments for even the simplest infectious diseases are no longer available. Drexler includes chapters on food-borne and insect-borne disease, the 1918 flu pandemic, and bioterrorism. One of the most interesting chapters is on the possible connection between infectious agents and chronic diseases like heart disease and schizophrenia. Though similar in scope to Philip Tierno's Germs (LJ 1/02), this book focuses more on general public health issues and less on day-to-day actions that individuals can take to prevent illness. Most public libraries will want both because of the current interest in bioterrorism. Elizabeth Williams, Fresno City Coll. Lib., CA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Science reporter Drexler launches this fascinating, thought-provoking book with a lively account of the dangerous West Nile virus, overseas and in the U.S., as the lead-in to an examination of zoonoses, or diseases that spread from animals to humans. She shows that the U.S. food supply is often unregulated and that food companies and agents are infrequently penalized for gross mishandling. She castigates sloppy hospital hygiene, pointing out that antibiotics have yet to eliminate any infectious disease, that there is a vaccine or an effective treatment for just 13 of the 50 pathogens most likely to be used by bioterrorists, and that underfunded, understaffed hospitals aren't able to respond adequately to bioterrorism. She also introduces some innovative researchers in public health, such as Brent Muhlestein, who has investigated chlamydia as a possible cause of cardiac plaque, and wife-and-husband Yuan Chang and Patrick Moore, who have demonstrated a viral causation of Kaposi's sarcoma. Throughout, Drexler decries inadequate U.S. support of public health planning, programs, and research. A substantial contribution to public information about infectious diseases. William Beatty
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