Customer Reviews

Virus Ground Zero: Stalking the Killer Viruses with the Centers for Disease Control

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An enjoyable book providing entry level information into the topics of viral outbreaks and the CDC. There is a well developed section on the background of the United States' Centers for Disease Control, and a refreshing perspective on the reality of the battle against the "killer microbes." Not an intense review of virology, but a fun easy to understand overview of the Ebola epidemic and other associated viral outbreaks.

This book traces the response of the CDC to an Ebola outbreak in Zaire in 1995. Like its predecessor, The Hot Zone, many stories are interwoven throughout the book to give a complete background into what happened. Despite this stylistic similarity, the message of this book is quite different from that of The Hot Zone, as becomes more and more clear by the end of the book.

One of the main story lines is a description of the development of the CDC, from its start as an anti-malaria organization to the multi-faceted behemoth that it is today. After reading the descriptions of the Level 4 labs in The Hot Zone, I never would have guessed at the primitive lab conditions found at the CDC through the 1960s and later.

Regis' core message is that of victory- -victory over this particular outbreak, victory over small pox, and the tremendous success we have had combating infectious illnesses during the twentieth century. He points out that so many infections can be prevented by simple hygiene, like washing one's hands, or by avoiding direct physical contact with infected people by using rubber gloves. Even the much feared Ebola virus doesn't spread easily when people follow standard hygiene protocols common in the developed world. Regis doesn't dismiss the importance of paying attention to communicable diseases and preventing epidemics, but he argues that there is no need to live in fear about new rain forest microbes out to get us.

Unfortunately, Ed Regis provides the readers with a very bland book on a very facinating topic. The book has no flow, is poorly organized, and is sprinkled with weak interviews from 'CDC disease cowboys.' One could obtain more useful information about 'killer viruses' from our daily news programs than from his book. Regis redeems himself however, by providing a historical perspective of the CDC, and documenting the organizations successes that have made it the international expert in infectious disease.

It's almost impossible to imagine that an author of a book about stalking killer viruses would spend more time on how the Center for Disease Control (CDC) numbers its buildings and on a CDC water bill from the Zairian government than on the AIDs epidemic, but that's what Ed Regis does in his boring and tedious book.

Virus Ground Zero is filled with details of the bureaucratic ins and outs of the CDC and spliced like an MTV video--the author can't sustain a story line for more than two pages without jumping 10 or 20 or 30 years back into the past. Because of the structure, there is little character development. A painful read.

Do yourself a favor and try Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill instead.

_Virus Ground Zero: Stalking the Killer Viruses with the Centers for Disease Control_ attempts to use the 1995 Kikwit Ebola epidemic as a case study for an examination of humanity's struggle with deadly viral and bacteriological pathogens. Ultimately, however, _Virus Ground Zero_ turns out to be a lightweight read bogged down by two agendas: act as a cheerleader for the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) specifically and science in general, and serve as a polemic against Laurie Garrett's _The Coming Plague_.

Despite the recent (November 2000) announcement of a possible break through in the development of an Ebola vaccine, Regis' `Rah! Rah!' routine for science and its ability to protect us, specifically against threats like Ebola, does not quite ring true. His attack on the near apocalyptic conclusions suggested by viral doomsayer's like Laurie Garrett, for example, is based more on the deconstruction of their semantics than convincing evidence.

Ed Regis brings impressive credentials to what the _Washington Post Book World_ calls "A readable-even fun-book." A philosophy professor and College Fellow at Western Maryland College, Regis has written and reviewed science books for years. One would think that such a background would have produced a more useful text than _Virus Ground Zero_.

Mr. Regis writes a fascinating biography of a chilling topic-incurable, deadly killing hemmorrahgic fevers that strike without warning. This book is a Must-read!