The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance [Hardcover]

Laurie Garrett (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0374126461 | ISBN-13: 978-0374126469 | Publication Date: October 1994

Based on research and interviews with experts in virology, molecular biology, disease ecology, and medicine, an exploration of our battles with microbes examines the current outbreak of infectious diseases and outlines what can be done to prevent the coming plague. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Where's your next disease coming from? From anywhere in the world--from overflowing sewage in Cairo, from a war zone in Rwanda, from an energy-efficient office building in California, from a pig farm in China or North Carolina. "Preparedness demands understanding," writes Pulitzer-winning journalist Laurie Garrett, and in this precursor to Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health, she shows a clear understanding of the patterns lying beneath the new diseases in the headlines (AIDS, Lyme) and the old ones resurgent (tuberculosis, cholera). As the human population explodes, ecologies collapse and simplify, and disease organisms move into the gaps. As globalization continues, diseases can move from one country to another as fast as an airplane can fly.

While the human race battles itself ... the advantage moves to the microbes' court. They are our predators and they will be victorious if we, Homo sapiens, do not learn how to live in a rational global village that affords the microbes few opportunities.

Her picture is not entirely bleak. Epidemics grow when a disease outbreak is amplified--by contaminated water supplies, by shared needles, by recirculated air, by prostitution. And controlling the amplifiers of disease is within our power; it's a matter of money, people, and will. --Mary Ellen Curtin --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Documenting the plausible threat of major new worldwide epidemics, as well as eruptions of recently discovered diseases, Garrett's gripping and frightening report sounds a wake-up call to the planet. Wars, sexual promiscuity, inept public-health efforts and development schemes that disrupt ecosystems are some of the factors she says contribute to the alarmingly rapid mutation of viruses, the pandemics sweeping through the animal world, and the spread of human diseases to new areas. Health and science writer for New York Newsday, Garrett discusses the tremendous increase in AIDS and HIV infection across Asia, outbreaks of the incredibly lethal Ebola virus in Africa, and the spread of diseases via human technologies (such as tampons contributing to toxic shock syndrome). Her first-rate investigation concludes with a call for a global early warning system to rapidly detect new diseases and drug-resistant strains. BOMC, QPB and Natural Science Book Club selections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 750 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T) (October 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374126461
• ISBN-13: 978-0374126469
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #574,757 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurie Garrett is the only writer ever to have been awarded all three of the Big "Ps" of journalism: the Peabody, the Polk, and the Pulitzer.

LATEST BOOK: I HEARD THE SIRENS SCREAM: How Americans Responded to the 9/11 and Anthrax Attacks, available exclusively as an e-book.
WEBSITE: Visit www.lauriegarrett.com

Her journalistic efforts at KPFA-FM radio in northern California garnered the 1977 George Foster Peabody broadcast journalism award, for a series called "Science Story." In 1996 Garrett received the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the 1995 Ebola virus epidemic in Kikwit, Zaire. The following year she was awarded the George C. Polk award for a series of more than 30 articles she published in Newsday, documenting the collapse of health and rise of HIV, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and dozens of other diseases in the former Soviet countries. Her second Polk Award was given in recognition of the reporting in BETRAYAL OF TRUST: The Collapse of Global Public Health.

Laurie Garrett was in graduate school studying immunology when she started reporting, as a sideline, on Berkley radio station KPFA-FM. After a year of this hobby, including the co-production of a radio series, "Science Story," Garrett and colleague Adi Gevins were awarded the George Foster Peabody Award for Broadcasting, the highest such honor for radio. Garrett continued working at KPFA, in multiple jobs including management, reporting, documentary production, and disc jockey. She received multiple awards during this period, including the so-called "Major Award" in broadcasting from the Edwin Howard Armstrong Foundation.

In 1979 Garrett spent a year covering a variety of stories overseas, including the SALT-II nuclear disarmament negotiations between the US and USSR, the World Food Summit in Rome, civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the anti-apartheid activities in the African frontline states, and a long list of outbreaks and disease issues across sub-Saharan Africa. During this period she resided primarily in Lusaka, Zambia, reporting for a variety of news outlets, from Pacifica Radio to the BBC.

From 1980-88 Garrett worked as a Science Correspondent for National Public Radio, based first in San Francisco and then Los Angeles. Her work at NPR, which featured detailed coverage of the unfolding HIV/AIDS epidemic in the US and Africa, was honored with a long list of awards and recognition. Garrett began covering the AIDS epidemic in June 1981, and continuously chronicled the horrible spread of the disease and its toll for more than 20 years.

In mid-1988 Garrett left NPR to join the science writing and foreign desk staffs of Newsday, then the third largest daily newspaper in America. Garrett covered a diverse range of stories all over the world, including: the spread of HIV around Lake Victoria, plague in India, Chernobyl radiation illness in Ukraine, toxic waste in El Salvador, discovery of ancient tombs in the Egyptian desserts, and SARS in Beijing.

In 1996 Garrett was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism for her coverage of the 1995 Ebola virus epidemic in Zaire. In addition to the "three P's of Journalism" Garrett's work at Newsday was honored with four awards from the Overseas Press Club of America, and a long list of recognitions from a variety of professional journalism societies. In 2000 Garrett shared with the New York Times' Larry Altman the first Victor Cohn Award for Medical Science Reporting, from the National Association of Science Writers (NASW). Garrett served as President of NASW for two years while at Newsday.

The EDUCATION
Garrett was born in Los Angeles, a 5th generation Los Angeleno. Garrett is a proud product of public education, having attended public schools and universities in California. She graduated with honors in biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Garrett attended graduate school in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology at UC Berkeley and did research at Stanford University in the laboratory of Dr. Leonard Herzenberg. Her PhD studies, mentored by Dr. Leon Wofsy, focused on measuring T cell responses to variable stimuli.

Garrett did not complete her PhD studies, as her reporting "hobby" in local radio proved far more compelling. Laurie Garrett never attended a school of journalism, though she served on the faculty of the Schools of Journalism at UC Berkeley (academic year 1997-98) and Columbia University (2001).

In academic year 1992-3 Garrett was a Fellow in the Harvard School of Public Health, where she learned a tremendous amount of health science that continues to guide her work today.

In 1995 Garrett received the University of California Alumni Achievement Award.
In 1998 Laurie Garrett was awarded a PhD by Illinois Wesleyan University, Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.
In 2002 Garrett was awarded a second PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell: Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa.
In 2007 the University of Minnesota named Laurie Garrett a member of the Delta Omega Society, an honorary public health society.
In 2009 Garrett was awarded a PhD from Georgetown University, Scientiae Doctorum, honoris causa.
In 2011 Laurie Garrett was named one of the "45 Greatest Alumni" of the University of California in Santa Cruz, on the 45th anniversary of the school's creation.

The COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
In 2004 Laurie Garrett left Newsday to join the think tank staff of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. She now runs the Council's Global Health Program, and serves as the Senior Fellow for Global Health. Garrett has written several reports and articles including: HIV and National Security: Where are the Links?, A Council Report (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2005), 'The Next Pandemic?' (Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005), 'The Lessons of HIV/AIDS' (Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005), 'The Challenge of Global Health' (Foreign Affairs, January/February 2007), The Future of Foreign Assistance Amid Global Economic and Financial Crisis, A Council on Foreign Relations Action Plan (2009),and CastroCare in Crisis (Foreign Affairs July/August 2010).

AND FINALLY (in the first person)

I am an avid urban cyclist, using a 25 year old Specialized Crossroads for commuting and errands, and a custom titanium Merlin road bike for the real rides. I avidly support the greening of NYC, expansion of bike paths and lowering Brooklyn's carbon footprint.

For several years I was a partner with Havens Wines, located in the Napa Valley. The wines were magnificent, and being in the wine biz -- even merely as one of 14 partners --- was loads of fun. Sadly, we sold Havens Wines a few years ago, and the buyers couldn't make a go of it: Havens no longer exists. But I retain great admiration for skilled wine makers, and love of gourmet meals lubricated with fantastic wines and shared with great friends.

For more than 20 years I have been a strong supporter of the arts in New York, especially performances at BAM. As a BAM patron, I attend as many of the Brooklyn Academy of Music concerts, plays, dances and performances as my schedule will allow.

Brooklyn rules.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

107 of 109 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Microbes are no fun!, May 18, 2000

By 

Chad Bagley "Chad" (Shanghai China/Provo, UT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (Paperback)

I read this book two years ago and thought it was a great read. I just finished reading it again and have to say that I liked it even more the second time around. I should warn you however, that if you're looking for lighthearted summer reading that'll lull you into complacency and make you feel all warm and fuzzy about the world- stick to Oprah's book list. The only warm fuzzies you'll find in this very informative and well-written book are the microbes and viruses that make up the subject matter.

Laurie Garrett has done a masterful job of chronicling the spread of infectious diseases over the last 50 years. The book is divided into sections that give the history of the rise (and in one or two cases- the fall) of the major pandemics of this century. The chapter on AIDS is worth the price of the book alone and should be required reading for political science students. It's the perfect case study on how apathy, intolerance, ignorance and political infighting foster the spread of infectious diseases.

The underlying message of The Coming Plague is that we are at war with oodles and oodles of really small things whose survival instincts are much better than ours. In short- we're losing! These pernicious little buggers seem to be able to adapt much quicker than we can find new ways to kill them.

The Coming Plague reads like a detective story. And Garrett does a fine job of making it human and personal by giving us a peek into the lives of the scientists who are heading up the fight to solve the mysteries -and the victims who suffer from them.

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Critically Important Book On Emerging Public Health Issues, June 12, 2000

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Coming Plague : Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (Library Binding)

With recent news blurbs concerning the possible threat from strains of the West Nile virus in the northeastern part of the country this summer, the urgent importance of this book is quietly being reinforced. This important effort by journalist Laurie Garrett is a whopper; a long, carefully documented and quite readable text giving an overview of the worldwide efforts of the "insect fighters' at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) of the U.S. Public Health Service and other agencies ranging from the U.N to state, university and local agencies to combat a panoply of both new biological agents like HIV, Ebola, and the West Nile virus as well as new and much more virulent and drug-resistant strains of old enemies like tuberculosis, bubonic plague, a number of venereal diseases, and complex new public health concerns like Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Ms Garrett's highly detailed and exhaustively documented thesis, written while on a graduate fellowship at Harvard, is both frightening and hard to ignore. She posits that through our environmental arrogance and stupidity, the general medical strategies of the western societies, and our consistent overuse of antibiotics, we are quickly losing the continuing fight to keep the general public of both the postindustrial nations and the less developed world safe from the wild panoply of microbiological agents that are out there in the environment, and we are, through our encroachment on wilderness areas never before populated by humans, unnecessarily introducing segments of the population to new microbiological agents who then find a vector or path into human habitation and resultant infection. Moreover, the increasing levels of world commerce and concomitant travel among the nations of the world mean that someone infected in the jungles of South America or equatorial Africa can be in a restaurant in New York City or at the beach on Martha's Vineyard several days later as the agent starts its formidable and often highly contagious microbiological attack. This is truly scary stuff.

One becomes increasingly concerned about the safety of the general public and for our relative lack of public health preparedness as one winds through the pages of this long book. The approach is one of individual story telling, and while this makes the book much more readable and entertaining, it also tends to repeat a lot of information that one could otherwise avoid. Yet this is truly a minor quibble with a facintaing and fact-packed book that often made me feel like I was taking a graduate seminar in "Current Issues in Infectious Epidemiology". It's tone is both approachable and yet scholarly, a rare treat to enjoy, and Ms Garrett's obvious intelligence and ability to communicate shines here, as she makes complex environmental, infectious disease, and human issues converge in an understandable and compelling way.

Finally, she makes an excellent case for increased public awareness as well as immediate political action to restore and reinvigorate the vitality and capability of our local, state, and national public health agencies, and certainly has increased my own awareness and concern for the ongoing scientific effort to battle the microbes. If her argument that many of the gains of the 20th century in public health (and the healthy longevity we enjoy as a result) are increasingly at risk is correct, we must take action to combat the wide range of problems she discusses to avoid a serious long-term breakdown in our public health system. This is an important book that has sparked a serious national and international public debate about some critically important issues that could literally potentially affect billions of people across the globe. I recommend it, hope it will be even more widely read, and hope you read it, too.

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Advantage: Microbe, February 10, 2001

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance (Paperback)

"The Coming Plague" is 620 pages of densely-packed text on humanity's war against its deadliest enemies. Throughout the twentieth century and into the new millenium, we've given our microscopic enemies glorious new opportunities to exploit us, whether it be through war, slash-and-burn agriculture, or stagnant water in an air-conditioning system. Laurie Garrett has written a fascinating and frightening account of some of the battles we almost won (measles and polio) and some where we appear to be in full retreat (AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis). Her book is especially compulsive reading when she describes the individual skirmishes in the war, e.g. a journey into the African bush to identify and treat a disease that was killing 80% of its victims, or the discovery that cholera vibrio could live inside of algae and didn't require person-to-person transmission.

Even if you live in the middle of the Canadian tundra and have sworn off eating mollusks for the rest of your life, this book hammers home the fact that you're still not safe from what used to be called 'Third World diseases'. Even as I write this review, there is a woman in an isolation chamber of a hospital in Hampton, Ontario who is gravely ill with an unknown hemorrhagic fever. The doctors don't think its Ebola Fever, but they're not sure what it is, or whether any of the other passengers on the plane from Nigeria to Canada could also have been infected.

You can conclude (as I did) from "The Coming Plague" that many of us who expected to die from age-related conditions such as heart failure or cancer, may now well perish from infection. This book manages to combine the heroics of "Men against Death", the grim prophecy of "Silent Spring", and descriptions of several hair-raising, near-tragedies akin to the "Hot Zone". I highly recommend it.