Book Review - Beating Back The Devil by Maryn McKenna
Category Book Reviews
After reading The Coming Plague, I found myself fascinated by the people who do disease research. Beating Back The Devil by Maryn McKenna continues in that vein, and is a good read...
McKenna covers the history and activities of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), which is a branch of the CDC. These people, who are considered a branch of the military, sign up for a stint which involves intensive training, personal risk, and the knowledge that they may be sent anywhere in the world with a single phone call and no notice. It's the people in this group that were on the front lines of discovering and fighting Ebola, AIDS, and hantavirus. The author generally follows a specific group of EIS personnel through their adventures (but not exclusively), so you get to know and understand the personal costs of this type of work. It's truly amazing that we have people in this country that are willing to risk everything to keep us safe from things we can not see and may not be able to protect ourselves from. Since many of the disease episodes are relatively recent, it's easy to relate to what's going on in the story, and McKenna does a good job in bringing it all to life. This is probably one of the advantages of this book over The Coming Plague. Beating helps cover that ten year gap since Plague was published.
If the subject of disease detection and control is of interest to you, Beating Back The Devil is a must-read...
After reading The Coming Plague, I found myself fascinated by the people who do disease research. Beating Back The Devil by Maryn McKenna continues in that vein, and is a good read...
McKenna covers the history and activities of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), which is a branch of the CDC. These people, who are considered a branch of the military, sign up for a stint which involves intensive training, personal risk, and the knowledge that they may be sent anywhere in the world with a single phone call and no notice. It's the people in this group that were on the front lines of discovering and fighting Ebola, AIDS, and hantavirus. The author generally follows a specific group of EIS personnel through their adventures (but not exclusively), so you get to know and understand the personal costs of this type of work. It's truly amazing that we have people in this country that are willing to risk everything to keep us safe from things we can not see and may not be able to protect ourselves from. Since many of the disease episodes are relatively recent, it's easy to relate to what's going on in the story, and McKenna does a good job in bringing it all to life. This is probably one of the advantages of this book over The Coming Plague. Beating helps cover that ten year gap since Plague was published.
If the subject of disease detection and control is of interest to you, Beating Back The Devil is a must-read...
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Posted by Gregg Eldred At 13:43:10 On 30/05/2005 | - Website - |