Microbe by Alan Zelicoff

Like all the books I have read on infectious disease, this book is highly alarmist in tone. It recounts several recent outbreaks, adding a good dose of medical science for good measure, in order to advance the thesis that we need to be more prepared for the next outbreak. The author is not arguing for more research into drugs and treatment, but better organization and information resources to halt the spread of deadly disease as opposed to successfully treating individual cases. A book that makes you go, hm. The United States has been lucky for much of its recent history in avoiding epidemics, but the author argues persuasively that we must not let this lull us into complacency. The kind of measures he advocates would probably entail the Big Government that conservatives are trying to save us from, but if dealing with national emergencies is not the job of the federal government, what is? Informative and thought-provoking.