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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
The great equalizer between humans and sheep, anthrax has filled us with morbid curiosity as far back as records exist. Once believed to be a manifestation of unholy fire, today it is seen as a weapon of deranged terrorists or sinister governments. Medical anthropologist Jeanne Guillemin's Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak examines the 1979 deaths of 64 Soviet citizens in the Ural mountains. Blamed at the time on tainted meat, Guillemin's team proved that a plume of spores from a nearby military site caused the event (Boris Yeltsin admitted this much at about the same time). Not just a medical detective story, Guillemin's book is also an insightful look into the effects such an outbreak has on survivors and a penetrating analysis of the prospects of biological warfare in the not-too-distant future. Starting in the local cemetery to find the victims' identities--the KGB had long ago seized their records--the team interviews survivors and kin, unleashing long-repressed feelings and yielding valuable information about those struck down. Ultimately, despite interference from the Russian military and civil service, the tainted meat hypothesis is refuted and clear evidence of illegal and dangerous research released. The reader is left to wonder about one Russian's suggestion that if the wind had changed course one day in 1979, hundreds of thousands might have died. Where does that leave us today? --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In a dense and unsettling work, Boston College sociologist Guillemin depicts her 1992 journey to Russia to research a mysterious 1979 anthrax epidemic: little was known about the outbreak, in which 64 died in the remote province of Yekaterinburg, between Kazakhstan and Siberia. In pat and conflicting comments, Russian authorities said the outbreak had followed anthrax's usual pattern, deriving from either soil, ceramics dust or contaminated meat. But a general suspicion developed in the scientific and intelligence communities that the anthrax had resulted from a more unusual aerosol emission from the nearby Compound 19, a weapons facility. Was the outbreak a result of biological weapons technology? Guillemin's team members gather the evidence, though they are unable to establish a definitive answer. Her sociological background leads her to focus on the human variables in this scientific mystery; by tracking down survivors of the outbreak, she hoped to shed light on the enigmas of the disease's dispersal rate and pattern. Unfortunately, her recounting of many minute sparring sessions with the team's wily Russian counterparts, as well as a morass of sociological commentary on a fragmenting postcommunist Russian society, are prolix. Though it raises disturbing questions about research in biological warfare, this medical mystery is more appropriate for epidemiology and other medical professionals rather than fans of The Hot Zone.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
The great equalizer between humans and sheep, anthrax has filled us with morbid curiosity as far back as records exist. Once believed to be a manifestation of unholy fire, today it is seen as a weapon of deranged terrorists or sinister governments. Medical anthropologist Jeanne Guillemin's Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak examines the 1979 deaths of 64 Soviet citizens in the Ural mountains. Blamed at the time on tainted meat, Guillemin's team proved that a plume of spores from a nearby military site caused the event (Boris Yeltsin admitted this much at about the same time). Not just a medical detective story, Guillemin's book is also an insightful look into the effects such an outbreak has on survivors and a penetrating analysis of the prospects of biological warfare in the not-too-distant future. Starting in the local cemetery to find the victims' identities--the KGB had long ago seized their records--the team interviews survivors and kin, unleashing long-repressed feelings and yielding valuable information about those struck down. Ultimately, despite interference from the Russian military and civil service, the tainted meat hypothesis is refuted and clear evidence of illegal and dangerous research released. The reader is left to wonder about one Russian's suggestion that if the wind had changed course one day in 1979, hundreds of thousands might have died. Where does that leave us today? --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In a dense and unsettling work, Boston College sociologist Guillemin depicts her 1992 journey to Russia to research a mysterious 1979 anthrax epidemic: little was known about the outbreak, in which 64 died in the remote province of Yekaterinburg, between Kazakhstan and Siberia. In pat and conflicting comments, Russian authorities said the outbreak had followed anthrax's usual pattern, deriving from either soil, ceramics dust or contaminated meat. But a general suspicion developed in the scientific and intelligence communities that the anthrax had resulted from a more unusual aerosol emission from the nearby Compound 19, a weapons facility. Was the outbreak a result of biological weapons technology? Guillemin's team members gather the evidence, though they are unable to establish a definitive answer. Her sociological background leads her to focus on the human variables in this scientific mystery; by tracking down survivors of the outbreak, she hoped to shed light on the enigmas of the disease's dispersal rate and pattern. Unfortunately, her recounting of many minute sparring sessions with the team's wily Russian counterparts, as well as a morass of sociological commentary on a fragmenting postcommunist Russian society, are prolix. Though it raises disturbing questions about research in biological warfare, this medical mystery is more appropriate for epidemiology and other medical professionals rather than fans of The Hot Zone.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
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