Health Beauty and Disease Information

Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused I

“It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease combined.” Between 20 million and 100 million people worldwide died in the 1918 flu pandemic, but for years afterward this deadliest plague in history was almost completely forgotten. Histories and even medical texts rarely mentioned it. This disconnect between the flu’s devastation and its obscurity is the starting point for Kolata’s incisive history. She explains how the plague spread, covers the various speculations about its causes and origins and gives an account of the search to retrieve a specimen of the virus strain once genetic science had advanced enough to unravel the virus’s mysteries. Tissue samplesAfrom an obese woman buried in the permafrost of Alaska and from two soldiers who died in army campsApreserved by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in thumb-sized bits of paraffin prove to be the last (more…)

The most important thing to know about the avian flu pandemic is that it probably ain’t coming, argues this brisk debunking of the latest medical scare story. Siegel, an associate professor at the NYU School of Medicine (False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear), cites evidence that the death rate from avian flu could be much lower than the reported estimate of 50% and it will probably not mutate to be readily transmissible between humans. And unlike the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, Siegel contends, a new bird flu pandemic would face effective public health measures and medical treatments. Revisiting the West Nile virus, anthrax, SARS and bioterrorism panics, Siegel sees bird flu as the latest “bug du jour” hyped by government and media alarmism. Meanwhile, he complains, attention is diverted from far more deadly diseases like AIDS, malaria and regular flu. In his own lapse into medical panic, he insists that stress induced by medical panics is itself a serious medical problem. Siegel accessibly presents the facts about avian flu, together with colorful anecdotes about his own panic-stricken patients whom he advises to simply eat right and exercise. Siegel’s exemplary bedside manner makes this dose of common sense go down easy. (Feb.) (Publishers Weekly, February 27, 2006) (more…)

From Library Journal
The current interest in emerging diseases has led many virologists to write their own popular books on the subject. Many incorporate the entertaining if lurid detail popularized by Richard Preston’s bestselling The Hot Zone (LJ 8/94). Some, like Frank Ryan in his Virus X (LJ 1/97), use accounts of emerging virus outbreaks as a lead-in to fascinating discussions on the ecology and evolution of viruses. Oldstone, who directs a laboratory of viral immunobiology at the Scripps Research Institute, takes a more traditional approach, intending to write in the spirit of Paul de Kruif’s classic Microbe Hunters (1926). After a short introduction to the principles of virology and immunology, Oldstone describes the partial or total conquests of four major killers?smallpox, yellow fever, measles, and polio?then discusses old and emerging diseases that are serious threats?Lassa fever, Ebola, Hantavirus, AIDS, and influenza. Unfortunately, Oldstone’s writing lacks de Kruif’s prose style and engrossing detail; much, if not all, of his work reads like a (more…)