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Mike Davis

The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu Hardcover – September 15, 2005

by Mike Davis (Author)

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From the acclaimed writer The Nation calls the "master of disaster prose," a terrifying forecast of a new global threat.

"We are talking at least seven million deaths, but maybe more—10 million, 20 million, and the worst case, 100 million."—Shigeru Omi, Regional Director, western pacific office of the World Health Organization, November 2004

Avian influenza is a viral asteroid on a collision course with humanity. In 1918, a pandemic strain of influenza killed at least 40 million people in three months. Now, leading researchers believe, another world catastrophe is imminent.

A virus of astonishing lethality, known as H5N1, has become entrenched in the poultry and wild bird populations of East Asia. It kills two out of every three people it infects. The World Health Organization warns that it is on the verge of mutating into a super-contagious pandemic form that could visit several billion homes within two years.

In this urgent and extraordinarily frightening book, Mike Davis reconstructs the scientific and political history of a viral apocalypse in the making, exposing the central roles of agribusiness and the fast-food industries, abetted by corrupt governments, in creating the ecological conditions for the emergence of this new plague. He also details the scandalous failure of the Bush administration, obsessed with hypothetical "bio-terrorism," to safeguard Americans from the greatest biological threat since HIV/AIDS.

Print length

212 pages
Language

English
Publisher

New Press, The
Publication date

September 15, 2005
Dimensions

5.58 x 0.86 x 7.62 inches
ISBN-10

1595580115
ISBN-13

978-1595580115
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Smart and tough: an author with one eye out for the underdog, the other on the sickness of the political and corporate landscape.

About the Author

MacArthur fellow Mike Davis is the author of several books, including City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, Dead Cities, and—with Kelly Mayhew and Jim Miller—Under the Perfect Sun. He lives in San Diego.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Press, The; 1st edition (September 15, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 212 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1595580115
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1595580115
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.58 x 0.86 x 7.62 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #532,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #86 in Preventive Medicine (Books)
- #335 in Communicable Diseases (Books)
- #340 in Sociological Study of Medicine

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Mike Davis

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Mike Davis is the author of several books including City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, Late Victorian Holocausts, Planet of Slums, and Magical Urbanism. He was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He lives in Papa'aloa, Hawaii.

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Sixteen years later....all his predictions came true

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 11, 2021

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I read this in October 2021, in year two of the Covid-19 pandemic. His catalog of secrecy, lies, stupidity, and worse could have been written yesterday instead of 16 years ago. Nothing has changed. Despite warning after warning from people who knew better.

Canada, for example, had a large facility (Connaught Labs) that made all sorts of vaccines--typhoid, measles, polio, etc.--and actually supplied most of the world with some of them. The subsidiary of the Canadian company in Swiftwater Pennsylvania produced--40 years ago--the bulk of the flu vaccine for the US. It still does. In the 1980s Connaught was a crown corporation--government owned. In their wisdom, the Conservative gov. sold it to a French company, which merged and then merged again and again. The French shut down the Canadian manufacture of vaccines. So...guess what? When Covid-19 struck, there was no Canadian manufacturer of vaccines, and Canada had to buy vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. And then the US said, "Whoop, you may have bought these vaccines, but we'll let you know when we'll allow them to be delivered. Don't hold you breath." So Canada waited and waited to get the vaccines they needed, and meanwhile people died.

The corporate greed that ties in with all this is predictable, but terrible. The Thai multi-national chicken processor used the H5N1 avian flu to pressure the Thai gov. to pass regulations that basically destroyed small poultry farmers. The richer countries refused to allow poorer countries to by-pass patent protections and produced their own flu vaccines, even though the producers in rich countries couldn't produce anywhere near what was needed. And on and on. Horrifying....and all 16 years ago. No change.

One person found this helpful

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Kcorn

A must read if you are already worrying about "What if?"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 6, 2005

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I get the jitters every time I hear about the "coming pandemic", especially since the news is usually accompanied by reports that we don't have enough vaccines, there is a high mortality rate, etc. No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to stop that small tinge of worry at the back of my mind that keeps coming to the forefront when I'm not doing something else. All the "what ifs?" that make me consider the possible scenarios and how we'd deal with them IF and WHEN this very deadly flu starts passing from person to person...they keep floating around, with question after question accompanying my inner dialogue. Questions like: Would the schools be closed? Would cities be quarantined or just specific neighborhoods? How would our economy be affected? What can we do?

So I decided to read this book, even though it would seem like the LEAST rational thing to do, considering my already anxious state...and, oddly enough, I felt better afterwards. The facts about HSN1, this virus which lives in poultry and other birds, were laid out quite clearly. At least I knew more than I had before and that knowledge made me aware of other possibilities and changes that might make a difference.

I could see how certain vital changes in the way government, the food industries and others who'd be at the forefront of handling a health crisis could make significant differences in how many people lived or died during a pandemic. I realized the urgency in getting vaccines made and dispensed to everyone as quickly as possible and was motivated to do what I could to work towards that goal, in whatever way possible, large or small. I stopped worrying and started to push for solutions as well as finding out about those who were trying to make truly useful vaccines in mass quantities.

This is a "must read" for those who want to be in the know when it comes to what may be coming our way. But be forewarned- if you're looking for reassurance, this book isn't the one you want. But if you can handle the facts, you will definitely want to put this at the top of your book list.

12 people found this helpful

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R. A. Barricklow(Scaramouche)

The bones have been rolled & it's SNAKE EYES

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 16, 2005

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A privitized health system is weak. A public one is strong. As a afficionado of emerging threats, this book is plays out in spades. A good source in following this story is the Worldnews Network online. Since the avian flu "incipient" 1997 debut in Hong Kong, I can say that THE MONSTER AT OUR DOOR covers the ground very well. Even including a little known fly story (on the wall type, literally!) out of Japan. And it comes down to this- a numbers game. And in Vegas, bones (dice) are rolled again and again. Over a very long period of time it adds up to a precise science. Yes its coming. The U.S. does not have an effective health system, let alone a public one. (Laurie Garrett's BETRAYAL OF TRUST: THE COLLAPSE Of GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH). SO WILL THE U.S. GOVERNMENT LEAD THE WAY TOWARD A GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH SYSTEM? Don't hold you breath.

10 people found this helpful

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Alarming, But Not Alarmist

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 16, 2005

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Sometimes books like this have a tendency to overstate their claims in hyperbolic fits. Here, Mike Davis does an excellent job of describing the history and pathology of Avian Flu, without resorting to hyped up Hollywood plots. The reality is frightening enough and doesn't need to be magnified in any way. Although this book explains the scientific aspects of H5N1, it is not a difficult slog through incoherent jargon. If you want to know the nature of the Avian Flu Crisis, its likely impact, and the policies that got us here, this book is a good choice.

5 people found this helpful

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One for the RSPCA

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 21, 2005

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If you're an animal lover, don't read this book, with its tales of duck massacres and chicken exterminations. However, Mike Davis' latest rip-roaring tale is a good view into the latest health scare to grip the developed world...avian flu.
We've all become acquainted with the horrors of H5N1, or, as it's more commonly thought about, the flu which is harboured in the millions and billions of chickens, ducks and other cute and cuddly dim sum protagonists. Davis, an urban geographer who writes well about death & disaster, has picked up on avian flu as an example of the 'global' threats we face in a globalized world.
Davis makes some good points. He doesn't only focus on the virus, or on scientific details - he blends his analysis with social and political commentary, and focuses on the way the flu, if it ever became a pandemic, would hit the West hard, and the Third World even harder. He uses his work on ghettos and Third World urbanization to good effect when trying to impress upon the reader that flu would be a disaster mainly for those living in impoverished areas. Lastly, he catalogues little-known governmental failures in protecting the government against flu.
Davis writes well, but this book is surprisingly thin, and feels as though the publisher's marketing department decided it was the 'next best thing' and forsook depth for general B-movie appeal. It also makes some unconvincing points - in criticizing big pharma (which does need to be criticized), Davis isn't clear on whether he thinks it's big pharma or government which should take ultimate responsibility for flu vaccines, Tamiflu distribution and the like. And his use of apocalyptic statistics - claiming that up to 100 million died in the 1918 flu when the WHO states that it was 'at least 40 million' - does not endear. Lastly, it isn't clear what solutions, if any, he is proposing.
In short, a book definitely worth a read, but perhaps Davis' weakest to date.

7 people found this helpful

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