Six Modern Plagues and How We Are Causing Them

by Mark Jerome Walters
Finished on November 12th 2007
Rated by Duddy:
Read Duddy's review of Six Modern Plagues and How We Are Causing Them

Very interesting book on how what we are doing to the world is causing diseases namely BSE, Lyme disease, certain antibiotic-resistant Salmonellas, SARS and a couple of others. The author has interviewed individuals affected by these various plagues and this helps the reader realise the tragedies (and potential tragedies) involved. The story I found most affecting was a disease I hadn't heard of and remains the most mysterious - Hantavirus - which killed a pair of young American Indian lovers in 1993. The disease and its cause turns out to be quite well-known to generations of Indians and is depicted in cave paintings. From time to time El Nino, thousands of miles away, causes a change in the climate of Montana. It becomes wetter and in the following season the population of mice explodes. The mice cause the disease - how exactly is not yet known - and the mice are depicted in the wall paintings with an a disease-causing agent (depicted as a daemon) in the saliva and urine of the mouse. Each story is very well explained and the connection between say growth of acorns, mice, deer and their mites (which cause another disease) described in fascinating detail. At the end I am left better informed but also more worried about the implications of global warming.