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Book Review
Six Modern Plagues and How
We Are Causing Them
By Mark Jerome Walters
Published by Shearwater Books, Washington, DC, USA, 2003, ISBN: 155963992X,
Pages: 206, Price: US $22.00
Suggested citation
for this article:
Rutz D. Six modern plagues and how we are causing them [book review].
Emerg Infect Dis [serial online]. 2004 May [date cited]. Available
from: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no5/03-0936.htm
It's not the price but rather the pathology of progress that author Mark
Walters laments in Six Modern Plagues. Weaving anecdote with theory, Walters
draws from his diverse backgrounds in veterinary medicine and journalism
to link ecologic tampering to some of the most featured—if not feared—diseases
of our time.
In recounting the origin of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or
"mad cow disease," the author describes how, in compounding
cattle feed with slaughterhouse byproducts, we converted our oldest domesticated
herbivores into meat eaters. Bovine trickery aside, Walters renders his
frank assessment that, "violating such evolutional boundaries can
seem unnatural if not disgusting." He goes on to add a damaging link
to the food chain, leading to >100 human cases of always-fatal variant
Creutzfeldt-Jackob disease (vCJD). Most cases occurred in or are related
to the United Kingdom, where, by late 2000, more than 35,000 herd of cattle
were infected with BSE. Though the practice of supplementing feed with
animal byproducts has, for the most part, been abandoned, Walters suggests
that certain risks remain, as prions, the subviral infectious agent responsible
for mad cow and vCJD are also found in wild game, though, to date, no
one has connected consumption of deer or elk meat with vCJD.
However, far from being out of the woods, humankind remains vulnerable
to exotic diseases from unlikely sources. Walters attributes the rise
of Lyme disease to fragmented forests. Dissected by roads and separated
by developments, eastern woodlands can no longer sustain large natural
predators, but they remain ideal habitats for deer and mice, which can
expose humans to ticks carrying the dangerous Lyme spirochete. An ocean
away, as forays into sub-Saharan Africa tempted settlers to add bush meat
to their sparse diets, HIV made the species jump, Walters suggests, propelling
a worldwide AIDS pandemic.
Beyond our abuse of nature, Walters cites antimicrobial misuse as a precipitator
of frightening disease. He focuses most on antimicrobial agents in animal
feed, accusing policymakers of ignoring the threat of antimicrobial resistance,
fearing more the resistance of agricultural interests bent on nurturing
their flocks with medicated rations.
The foundation for the author's discussion varies from rock-solid to
rickety, but his half-dozen arguments portray a society more absorbed
in immediate gratification than in ultimate consequence. With that, he
offers a guarded prognosis that depends on both our cleverness at finding
new cures and our commitment to restoring ecologic wholeness.
Dan Rutz*
*Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
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