The coming plague
by Laurie Garrett · first published 1994
45% recommend50% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Narrative account of how emerging diseases like Ebola, Marburg and other hemorrhagic fevers were identified, with a clear view of how outbreaks, surveillance and public health connect, for readers wanting background.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This is an amazing book that Laura Garrett wrote back in the 90's. For anyone that has read the more popular book by Richard Preston "The Hot Zone" this is a must read. It is a much tighter more informative book. She takes us through the history of viruses in a journalistic/story approach. She breaks down the emergence of Ebola and the other emerging viruses and what it could mean in a brilliantly entertaining way. Each new disease/chapter starts with a journalistic story and ends with an educated informative narrative. With the Ebola outbreak going on now in Western Africa I had to come and
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…rapid mortality rate. It kills people relatively fast and consistently, so outbreaks often burn themselves out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease#Epidemiolo... If you're curious, The Coming Plague is a very interesting book that covers many hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola: http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases/dp...
on “The race to contain West Africa's Ebola outbreak” ↗A really good book that predicted this outbreak back in 1994 is called "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance" by Laurie Garrett. She actually has an excellent chapter on the Ebola virus and explained how this disease is so virulent. Ebola mutates very rapidly.
on “Ebola death toll rises to at least 2,296: WHO” ↗…Antibiotic resistance, diseases that "jump" from wildlife to humans, and even, perhaps, bioweapons, all seem to be major threats. Those interested in reading more might check out: * Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague http://amzn.to/2c9Vsoh * David Quammen's Spillover http://amzn.to/2cm4ONj Garrett's book is particularly good. I've not read a better summary of the political, economic, and social power disease will…
on “The Evolution of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria” ↗"The Coming Plague" is a book from 1994 that gave him plenty of credit. I read it a long time ago, but definitely remember it talking about him. It focuses on "virus hunters" from the CDC/WHO that tracked down a lot of…
on “Congolese doctor discovered Ebola, but didn't get credit until now” ↗…and burned themselves out once people stopped visiting the hospitals where they were transmitted through shared needles. This is a great book that covers many early outbreaks: http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases/dp...
on “African Ebola outbreak shows no sign of slowing” ↗Highly recommended If you're interested in this sort of thing: This Coming Plague, by Laurie Garrett. It's a very good book about, in a nutshell, how easy international travel is, and how lower investment in medical infrastructure and social services affect us all.
on “Bill Gates warns on future disease epidemic” ↗If you are interested in reading more about diseases that have seen recent emergence (or rather, emergent diagnosis[1]), The Coming Plague[2] by Laurie Garrett, ISBN 0140250913, is a good read. It details the modern origin cases that led to the characterization of a number of diseases, including Marburg, Ebola, Legionnaires' Disease, and…
on “Can America cope with a resurgence of tropical disease?” ↗…diseases and inform strategies on how to contain them. If you’re interested in reading about the initial cases of various emerging diseases (or rather, emerging diagnoses), Laurie Garrett‘s book, The Coming Plague, is a good read. 1. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/1/3/95-0308_article
on “CDC scientists pursue deadly monkeypox virus in Africa” ↗Right now I enjoy reading The Coming Plague https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Plague-Emerging-Diseases-Balan... Written 1995, but incredibly actual. Shows that most of epidemics are function of political will and economy and vice versa.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading to make sense of the economy?” ↗I was tidying out some books the other day and I found an excellent book that I had read ~1995: "The Coming Plague" by Laurie Garret: https://www.lauriegarrett.com/the-coming-plague I'm slowly re-reading it again and it is quite surreal - the first chapter describes a team from the US investigating a nasty disease…
on “The world should think better about catastrophic and existential risks” ↗…/eyeroll. Disease surveillance helps stop potential pandemics before the cost of addressing them and the damage the can cause, including loss of life, reaches colossal proportions. Recommended reading: The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett. I note how the conspiratorial assertion of Africans being used, in effect, as guinea pigs is entirely unsupported by any evidence whatever. Vaccine trials happen everywhere, not just…
Footnotes make scientific work more accessible and enrich the conversation. In Laurie Garrett’s “The Coming Plague”, the footnotes alone are worth the price. Even in monographs, when reviewing literature in an area where I’m not a specialist, I find footnotes valuable.
on “Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]” ↗I think we do forget it. More specifically, we forget the responses to disease which work, and as a result have dismantled our ability to respond. I read Laurie Garret's book "The Coming Plague" where she described the many things which were done to control the spread of disease. None of those things exist anymore, and would take a lot of time to re-create. No consideration is given to them…
on “A century on, why are we forgetting the deaths of 100M?” ↗…to expect and prepare for it so that next time we can prevail without great struggle. [0] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/predicting-katrina/ [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46722.The_Coming_Plague
on “The risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan” ↗…have warned that, sooner or later, nature would produce the next big SARS." In 1995 Laurie Garrett warned about how the world could be brought to its knees by another airborne flu-like illness in "The Coming Plague".[1] The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings that humans were continuing to play russian roulette with the way they were living with an using animals.…
on “The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory” ↗