Stuff
Product Details
Free Press, March 2010
Hardcover, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 141655727X
ISBN-13: 9781416557272
Description
LURKING in our homes, hospitals, schools, and farms is a terrifying pathogen that is evolving faster than the medical community can track it or drug developers can create antibiotics to quell it. That pathogen is MRSA—methicillin-resistant Staphyloccocus aureus—and Superbug is the first book to tell the story of its shocking spread and the alarming danger it poses to us all.
Doctors long thought that MRSA was confined to hospitals and clinics, infecting almost exclusively those who were either already ill or old. But through remarkable reporting, including hundreds of interviews with the leading researchers and doctors tracking the deadly bacterium, acclaimed science journalist Maryn McKenna reveals the hidden history of MRSA's relentless advance—how it has overwhelmed hospitals, assaulted families, and infiltrated agriculture and livestock, moving inexorably into the food chain. Taking readers into the medical centers where frustrated physicians must discard drug after drug as they struggle to keep patients alive, she discloses an explosion of cases that demonstrate how MRSA is growing more virulent, while evolving resistance to antibiotics with astonishing speed. It may infect us at any time, no matter how healthy we are; it is carried by a stunning number of our household pets; and it has been detected in food animals from cows to chickens to pigs.
With the sensitivity of a novelist, McKenna portrays the emotional and financial devastation endured by MRSA's victims, vividly describing the many stealthy ways in which the pathogen overtakes the body and the shock and grief of parents whose healthy children were felled by infection in just hours. Through dogged detective work, she discloses the unheard warnings that predicted the current crisis and lays bare the flaws that have allowed MRSA to rage out of control: misplaced government spending, inadequate public health surveillance, misguided agricultural practices, and vast overuse of the few precious drugs we have left.
Empowering readers with the knowledge they need for self-defense, Superbug sounds an alarm: MRSA has evolved into a global emergency that touches almost every aspect of modern life. It is, as one deeply concerned researcher tells McKenna, "the biggest thing since AIDS."
Doctors long thought that MRSA was confined to hospitals and clinics, infecting almost exclusively those who were either already ill or old. But through remarkable reporting, including hundreds of interviews with the leading researchers and doctors tracking the deadly bacterium, acclaimed science journalist Maryn McKenna reveals the hidden history of MRSA's relentless advance—how it has overwhelmed hospitals, assaulted families, and infiltrated agriculture and livestock, moving inexorably into the food chain. Taking readers into the medical centers where frustrated physicians must discard drug after drug as they struggle to keep patients alive, she discloses an explosion of cases that demonstrate how MRSA is growing more virulent, while evolving resistance to antibiotics with astonishing speed. It may infect us at any time, no matter how healthy we are; it is carried by a stunning number of our household pets; and it has been detected in food animals from cows to chickens to pigs.
With the sensitivity of a novelist, McKenna portrays the emotional and financial devastation endured by MRSA's victims, vividly describing the many stealthy ways in which the pathogen overtakes the body and the shock and grief of parents whose healthy children were felled by infection in just hours. Through dogged detective work, she discloses the unheard warnings that predicted the current crisis and lays bare the flaws that have allowed MRSA to rage out of control: misplaced government spending, inadequate public health surveillance, misguided agricultural practices, and vast overuse of the few precious drugs we have left.
Empowering readers with the knowledge they need for self-defense, Superbug sounds an alarm: MRSA has evolved into a global emergency that touches almost every aspect of modern life. It is, as one deeply concerned researcher tells McKenna, "the biggest thing since AIDS."
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"Like a modern-day Rachel Carson, Maryn McKenna sounds a powerful alarm about the insurgency of a deadly infection lurking in our schools, our gyms and even our food. Antibiotics are losing their life-saving powers because of our injudicious use that has helped spawn these increasingly invincible pathogens. By connecting the dots, Superbug may give us the early warning we need to prevent an uncontrollable epidemic."
- Shelley A. Hearne, DrPH, Managing Director, Pew Health Group, The Pew Charitable Trusts
- Shelley A. Hearne, DrPH, Managing Director, Pew Health Group, The Pew Charitable Trusts
"Maryn McKenna tracks the harrowing biography of MRSA with all the skills of a first-rate investigative journalist. Superbug reads like a thriller and is presented in a nuanced and eloquent prose that is as infectious as the microbe it details."
-Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, The University of Michigan; author of When Germs Travel
-Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine, The University of Michigan; author of When Germs Travel
"Maryn McKenna combines her talent for remarkable storytelling with compellingly detailed, breathtaking science writing. A first-rate work!"
- Paul Offit, MD, Chief of Infectious Diseases, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; author of Autism's False Prophets
- Paul Offit, MD, Chief of Infectious Diseases, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; author of Autism's False Prophets
"A well described and documented narrative of an important emerging infectious disease which goes behind the tabloid headlines to show the tragedy and toll of a frightening illness and a public health challenge."
- Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD, MPH, Vice President for Global Health and Director of the Emory Global Health Institute, Emory University, former Director, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Jeffrey P. Koplan, MD, MPH, Vice President for Global Health and Director of the Emory Global Health Institute, Emory University, former Director, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
"Superbug is essential reading for anyone going to the hospital or working in healthcare. Too often even top doctors dismiss the threat, saying 'the germs are everywhere.' Patients and medical professionals should read this book and take its lessons seriously."
- Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D., Founder, Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths
- Betsy McCaughey, Ph.D., Founder, Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths
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