Microbes Versus Mankind: The Coming Plague (Headline Series) [Paperback]

Laurie Garrett (Author), Karen Rohan (Editor), Nancy Hoepli-Phalon (Editor)

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Foreign Policy Assn (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871241692
• ISBN-13: 978-0871241696
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,170,647 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

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent way to prepare for The End., January 1, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Pleasant Valley, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microbes Versus Mankind: The Coming Plague (Headline Series) (Paperback)

In 1980 I worked in the emergency department of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Manhattan, often as the triage nurse. With my youthful, callous, professional, and caffienne-fired style I greeted the neigborhood's denizens each evening as they staggered or were carried in by the EMTs. But it was not until I read Laurie Garrett's riveting account of emerging infectious diseases did I recall the one or two times when a different sort of visitor arrived at our door. They came by private ambulance, with a strange and worried entourage', and the patient on the stretcher always looked moridund in a way I'd never seen before. When I politely asked this strange group if they needed help or direction, they quickly, politely refused, using their bodies to screen my approach to the patient. No, they explained, they were awaiting someone from the Infectious Disease service to accompany them upstairs. And so I'd back off and return to my post, ready to latch on to the next guest on the evening's never-ending list of walking wounded. Ms. Garrett's description of those patient's entrance to CPMC (they were possible Ebola and other disease victims from Africa) in search of a diagnosis, and hopefully rescue, was riveting and accurate, and made me beleive that her other information and anecdotes were equally accurate. There's nothing like the ring of Truth to make foreboding tales of pandemics and death keep a reader up nights turning pages. And in the light of news of an emerging influenza pandemic, I returned to "The Coming Plague" for a fast review. It provided all I needed to feel prepared for the unavoidable.

The information and anecdotes in "The Coming Plague" ring true both from a clinician's viewpoint as well as from one who scans the newspapers and medical journals for signs of outbreaks and breakthroughs. Medicine and science race daily to discover, and best, the next plague. The competition is real, and the stakes are almost beyond comprehension. But not beyond the comprehension of those of us who deal with disease and death and the risks inherent in caring for those infected each day. Ms. Garret's descriptions of signs and symptoms, of the history and natural progression of newly discovered and historically familiar diseases, is beleivable, accurate, and ghastly, while avoiding tabloid sensationalism. She has done her awful homework, and the results are spellbinding and educational. In the end, I felt like I'd sat through a series of ID lectures at the feet of someone who'd been there. I brought much of what I learned back to my work. But the most telling result are the nightmares.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for all medical personnel and biologists., January 17, 1998

By 

Lorie Katz "loriekatz" (Henderson, NV. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microbes Versus Mankind: The Coming Plague (Headline Series) (Paperback)

Well written, astoundingly accurate and frightening. It is an excellent readable reference volume.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book you must never lose!, May 2, 2000

By 

Lavonne F. Lacey (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microbes Versus Mankind: The Coming Plague (Headline Series) (Paperback)

I lost my original copy of the Coming Plague and have mourned its passing ever since. The book is so full of necessary information concerning the vulnerability of the world's peoples, that we are all seriously in danger of complete loss of the world's populations if we do not pay attention to these important facts and frightening possibilities. I especially appreciate Garrett's warning that we must educate the women of all nations if we are to survive!