The Coming Plague
by Laurie Garrett
The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett has a historical perspective, but asks awkward questions about the future. She looks at past epidemics, but questions whether some complacency hasn’t set in about our capacity to deal with pandemics. What if HIV mutated into a virus that was resistant to all drugs, for instance? A particularly sobering read at the current juncture.
Recommendations from our site
“Garrett draws the human population explosion and increasing urbanisation together with the fact that microbes can spread much more easily when people are crowded together. At the time The Coming Plague was published, it was a big eye opener and it became a bestseller.” Read more...
Dorothy H. Crawford, Medical Scientist
“I met Laurie during the Aids epidemic because she used to come to all the major HIV/Aids meetings. I remember her sitting and listening to the scientists debate and argue about different aspects of HIV and Aids. She comes at the issue of plagues more from a historical viewpoint, coupled with scientific discoveries that provide us with a warning that things may get worse. She goes through the past epidemics—Lassa fever, Ebola, HIV, malaria. She then points out that there are a lot of plagues that are still around us. Not only have we not solved them but, if we look at what’s happening within those plagues, things could get worse. She talks about antibiotic resistance and changes in tuberculosis and malaria that make them more difficult to treat. Recently Garrett wrote a book about the Ebola virus epidemic, one of the coming plagues she had talked about in her earlier book.” Read more...
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Arthur Ammann, Medical Scientist
