Six Modern Plagues: And How We Are Causing Them

by Mark Jerome Walters

Book Overview

"In a clear, engaging style, Dr. Walters tells the tale of each disease like a detective story. He allows each mystery to unfold as it did in reality, often slowly, through the lives of the plants and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559637145
• ISBN13: 9781559637145
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Shearwater Books
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

What are the human stories behind the latest epidemics?

What are the human stories behind the latest epidemics, and how are they closely related to human changes to the environment? Mark Jerome Walters uses Six Modern Plagues And How We Are Causing Them to outline the human influence in the course of such diseases as mad cow disease, monkeypox, West Nile virus and more. Walters narrowed focus on the human role in disease outbreaks makes for an involving coverage.

Quick introduction into recent headline plagues.

An engaging primer on six emerging diseases that have tormented the world recently: (1) Mad Cow Disease, (2) HIV/AIDS, (3) Salmonella DT104, (4) Lyme Disease, (5) Nile Virus, and (6) SARS. Walters' premise is that we have radically changed the environment and thus we are reaping the results of our own actions via plagues. Trained as a veterinarian, Walters sees all of the above plagues as the interactions between animals and our disruption of the environment. He states, "Intensive modern agriculture, clear-cutting of forests, global climate changes, decimation of many predators that once kept disease-carrying smaller animals in check, and other environmental changes have all contributed to the increase [of epidemics]." He also mentions how the increase of global travel has contributed to the spread diseases (i.e. SARS and HIV/AIDS).The book is a short, (156 pages) quick read, and best suited for those outside of the medical community who want to know more about any, or all, of these plagues. If you have a good grasp of epidemiology, and are well-read, you will probably find the subject matter remedial. Also, Walters' treatment of the six plagues is uneven. His last chapter on SARS is a quick gloss over and disappointing in comparison to his more captivating treatment of the preceding five plagues. Recommended 3.5 stars.

No more calling enviromentalists tree huggers

After reading this book no one will be able to make the argument that environmentalists are tree hugging crazies. This book deserves to be read widely.

An eloquent warning

"What threads we silently break; what voices we still. By what grace, I wondered, have we been kept so well by what we have abused for so long." (p. 95)This expression by science writer and journalism professor Mark Jerome Walters was inspired by a walk in an old growth forest, and is in reference to the planet's ecology. It is indicative of his reflective and eloquent style.It was thought not so many years ago that we had infectious diseases nearly under control and it would be only a matter of (short) time before they were eliminated as important causes of human morbidity. How naive such a pronouncement seems today!The six modern "plagues" that Walters writes about are mad cow disease, HIV/AIDS, antibiotic-resistant salmonella, Lyme disease, the four-corners hantavirus, and West Nile virus. There is an Epilogue in which he discusses SARS and mentions avian flu, which is making headline news today as I write this. Walters's argument in each of these cases is that these diseases have come to prominence because of something we humans have done.In the case of mad cow disease we have been mixing remnants from slaughtered cows and sheep in with their feed, including brain and nervous tissue parts that contain the prions responsible for the disease.In the case of HIV/AIDS we have been clearing forests in the African jungles, and to feed the loggers have increased the traffic in bushmeat resulting in a commingling of humans and wild simians providing an opportunity for the virus to jump from apes to people.In the case of Salmonella typhimurium DT104, it is our feeding antibiotics to farm animals that has allowed the antibiotic-resistant strain to develop. Lyme disease, Walters argues is the result of our encroachment on forests that have been depleted of their natural variety of species with the result that the mice and deer that harbor the ticks that are the vectors for Lyme disease appear in unnaturally disproportionate numbers especially following seasons of acorn abundance.A similar overabundance of mice in the Southwestern part of the US following El Nino years of heavy rains leads to more mice eating more pine nuts resulting in more human deaths from the hantavirus carried by the mice.In the case of West Nile virus, it is the international traffic in birds that has allowed the virus, native to the Nile River in Egypt to get on planes and come to the US and other places in the world where indigenous mosquitos bite the birds and then bite native species and humans. Or, it is the mosquitos themselves who catch the planes and travel anywhere in the world, their cache of virus stowed inside their bodies.Walters writes eloquently of these diseases and the tragedies they are causing. His purpose is to increase public knowledge about what we are doing to the environment and how that disturbance is wrecking havoc with the long establish ecosystems, and--like a tornado among forest litter--is causing pathogens that normally would not come into cont

scary, compelling, fascinating!

I sped through this book on a plane ride. It is a quick read, but well researched and wonderfully written. It is so scary how the way we treat the environment actually comes back to us...and effects our health! The chapter on mad cow disease is particularly disturbing. The author's hopefullness is reassuring though; he believes that we can slow the tide of infection, by protecting and restoring our "ecological wholeness."