Betrayal of Trust; The Collapse of Global Public Health

New York: Hyperion Books, 2000. First Edition [stated]. First Printing [stated]. ardcover. xiv, 754 pages. Notes. Index. Slight wear and soiling to DJ. Laurie Garrett (born 1951 in Los Angeles, California) is a Pulitzer prize-winning science journalist and writer of two bestselling books. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1996 for a series of works published in Newsday, chronicling the Ebola virus outbreak in Zaire. Garrett graduated with honors from Merrill College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she received a B.A. in biology in 1975. She attended graduate school in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology at University of California, Berkeley and did research at Stanford University. During her Ph.D. studies, Garrett started reporting on science news for radio station KPFA. At KPFA Garrett worked in management, in news, and in radio documentary production. A documentary series she co-produced with Adi Gevins won the 1977 Peabody Award in Broadcasting, and other KPFA production efforts by Garrett won the Edwin Howard Armstrong award. Garrett won a George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting in 1997 for "Crumbled Empire, Shattered Health" in Newsday, "a series of 25 articles on the public health crisis in the former Soviet Union". She won another Polk award in 2000 for her book Betrayal of Trust, "a meticulously researched account of health catastrophes occurring in different places simultaneously and amounting to a disaster of global proportions". Garrett takes us to India, where she meticulously examines the course of the country's pneumonic plague; to Zaire, where the Ebola virus is still largely unchecked; and to Russia, where bad policy and a collapsing society have made for staggering setbacks in all areas of health. Garrett also exposes the ungoverned world of biological terrorism. This Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist examines the declining state of public health around the world, and the increasing risk of highly contagious diseases. Garrett takes us to India, where she meticulously examines the course of the country's pneumonic plague; to Zaire, where the Ebola virus is still largely unchecked; and to Russia, where bad policy and a collapsing society have made for staggering setbacks in all areas of health. Garrett also exposes the ungoverned world of biological terrorism. "On par with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring ... This chilling exploration of the decline of public health should be taken seriously by leaders and policymakers around the world."--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review. In this exhaustively researched and ultimately explosive new book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the New York Times bestseller The Coming Plague, Laurie Garrett takes on perhaps the most crucial global issue of our time. She asks: is our collective health in a state of decline? If so, how dire is this crisis and has the public health system itself contributed to it? Using riveting detail and finely-honed storytelling, Garrett exposes the underbelly of the world's globalization to find out if it can still be assumed that government can and will protect the people's health, or if that trust has been irrevocably broken. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: This chilling exploration of the decline of public health should be taken seriously by leaders and policymakers around the world. Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for Newsday, has written an accessible and prodigiously researched analysis of disaster in the making in a world with no functioning public health infrastructure. In India in 1994, neglect of public health for the poor led to an outbreak of pneumonic plague; the once-dreaded disease is now easily treatable with antibiotics, but the failure of Indian authorities to quickly reach a diagnosis and provide accurate information resulted in a worldwide panic. The former Soviet Union, for all its flaws, according to Garrett, assured every citizen access to health care. After the U.S.S.R.'s breakup, the Russian economy collapsed. With no funding left for health care, Russia was overwhelmed by a tuberculosis epidemic. Even the U.S., historically a pioneer in public health, is lagging today. The author believes that the medical challenges posed by the epidemic spread of AIDS in Africa, by drug-resistant microbes carried from one country to another and by the danger of biological warfare can be met only by a cooperative global movement dedicated to strengthening public health infrastructures. Garrett sounds the alarm with an articulate and carefully reasoned account. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: AIDS, Alcoholism, Biological Warfare, Bioterrorism, Drug Abuse, Ebola, HIV, Infectious Diseases, Public Health, Biowarfare, Bioweapons, Disease Control, Epidemics, Margaret Hamburg, Immunization, Kikwit, Zaire, Plague, Sexually Transmitted Disease, S

ISBN: 0786865229

[Book #81982]

Price: $75.00

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