Secret Agents: The Menace of Emerging Infections

In Secret Agents: The
Menace of Emerging Infections
by Madeline Drexler she covers the main
categories of infectious disease threats
facing us today:

1. Insect carried diseases

2. Food borne diseases

3. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria

4. Influenza pandemics

5. Infection-caused chronic diseases

6. Bio-Terrorism

To me, after months of reading book after
book on these subjects, it all seemed
familiar -- but each chapter is
comprehensive and well researched.

Unlike some other books in this genre,
she focuses on the wide-angle view of
each disease outbreak and puts them
into context. She does not go into
long narratives bringing to life
the victims of each outbreak.

Therefore, this may make the threats
too dry or distanced for some people,
who prefer or need to become
emotionally aroused through pity
for the victims. But it does allow
her to devote more space to
outlining the facts.

The final chapter, Think Locally,
Act Globally (a deliberate play on
and reversal of the common
environmental expression Think
Globally, Act Locally) -- gets
into the proposed solutions.

Like others, her proposed solutions
focuses on world-wide monitoring
of medical problems and coordination
of data to detect trends so they
can be caught and dealt with
early instead of later.

This sounds good to me. Of
course, there is an underlying
presumption that it should be
paid for by the rich countries,
which in practice would mean
mainly the United States.

There is some self-righteousness
expressed at the need to get
rich countries to pay for healthcare
in poor countries by scaring the
rich countries. After all, if the
Sudan were rich and England poor,
the wealthy Sudanese would really
be concerned about the plight of
the poor English sick people,
right? Yeah, right. (Yes, I'm
being sarcastic. If the wealth
of the world were reversed, the
rich countries would be just
as -- if not more than -- unconcerned
about the plight of the poor.
So let's be constructive here
without the self-righteousness,
please.)

After months of reading these
kinds of books and researching
how to protect yourself from
bird flu, I AM convinced that
the wealthy countries will
never be fully safe until
disease is controlled in the
poor countries.

However, I came to this understanding
through facts and logic -- NOT
self-righteous indignation,
which I find offensive.

If you want me to pay out my
hard-earned money to deal with
problems I did not cause out
of enlightened self-interest -- then
enlighten me. Spare me the
arguments that look like
socialism in disguise.

This book actually does not
deserve quite so much counter-argument
along these lines, but some
of the others have gotten
under my skin. Plus, I've
already started reading THE
COMING PLAGUE by Laurie Garrett
and that's already got my goat
in the first few changes
(although I'm also gripped by
the account of searching for
Machupo in Bolivia), but that
review is next, and may well
be lengthy and full of
discussion along these lines.

This book is certainly recommended
as a terrific overview of the
infectious disease threatening
the entire world.