Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA

"The medical system completely destroyed my trust. It's greedy. It does nothing to keep people safe. It has no integrity." These are the words of Diane Lore,medical editor of her local newspaper, whose life was upheaved by MRSA days after the birth of her child. After months of suffering and family turmoil and an alphabet soup of antibiotics, Lori was finally declared cured. Along the way her insurance company refused to pay for linezolid, a medicine that would cost 6 thousand dollars just for a weekend's dosage. Fortunately the insurance company eventually relented, a move that may have saved her life. Diane Lore's experience and those of many other MRSA victims are told in gripping detail by Maryn McKenna. Her book is well paced and holds the reader's attention throughout until we learn of the emergence and discovery of the MRSA superbug. MRSA is a frightening foe with its uncanny ability to evolve and share defensive measures with other bacteria. The author proposes prevention and the need to spend more money to develop a MRSA vaccine. For intangible reasons I have developed and unquenchable interest in a a curiosity about MRSA. In the past year I've read at least five books about MRSA, infectious diseases and the abilities of bacteria to adapt to any and all weapons man can develop. In Superbug one learns about the evolution of hospital MRSA, community MRSA and now the horrow of a hybrid of both. McKenna's very readable book, fair, balanced, and insightful, is one of the best of the bunch and highly recommended.

I discovered Ms. McKenna's book via an NPR radio interview. I'm a registered nurse and had been helping an old friend for the last nine months fight CA-MRSA. He has been reinfected over six times in those nine months. When I began reading Superbug, I could barely finish one chapter at a sitting. The information contained in this book is so powerful and well researched, I had to let it all soak in before moving on to the next chapter. Ms. McKenna not only gives us the facts about MRSA, she captures us with her heart wrenching stories of the pain this "superbug" has caused in so many lives. I highly recommend reading this book and taking the precautions necessary to decrease the spread of this dreaded bacteria.

If you've read the Andromeda Strain or watched "Outbreak" you know how scary a rampant microbe can be to the human body. This book will tell tales of a type of microbe that is all around us and will mutate at it's convenience. Not scared yet? This isn't some exposé on some ancient plague. This is happening today. People are dying today from this "Superbug." Swineflu? Avianflu? Flu in general? Denghe fever? They don't scare me. The subject of this book does. This book will take you on a journey of how a Staph infection can mutate through many means, most of them human created, to create a "Superbug" of unknown potential. Maryn will take you step by step on how we created it and how the Doctors are trying to combat it. [Don't talk about it, because "they" don't- my commentary]. And FINISH those antibiotics the doctor gave you even if you feel better!!!!!

Superbug, along with Beating Back the Devil, cements Maryn McKenna's status as one of the most readable and enjoyable writers of our time covering infectious disease topics. This book details the public health threat of MRSA through the use of frightening individual experiences, behind-the-scenes research narratives, and well-written explanations of the ever-changing epidemiology of MRSA, all in eloquent yet readable detail. I believe there is something new in this book for anyone, whether it is read by a physician, investigator, nurse, student, or even the armchair philosopher. I'd absolutely recommend the book to anyone working in a clinical science or practice that deals with MRSA on a daily basis, or to any students considering careers in the health sciences! After working for 2.5 years side-by-side with Staph researchers in an MRSA lab, I must say I was quite impressed with how completely McKenna recounts the unfolding of the MRSA epidemic and updates the reader with current topics in MRSA research and epidemiology. It really put my work and education into context in a few hundred pages, and I have no doubt others will gain from reading this book!

Based on my background in biological science, I was very, very excited to get this book, and I was not disappointed. Maryn McKenna's new book SUPERBUG, deals with the development of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which is also known as a superbug, it is multiple-drug resistant and impressively deadly. It takes massive amounts of drugs with often serious side-effects to even have a chance of beating it. Historically, MRSA was a disease of hospitals, and only in people that were already suffering from a weakened immune system - but that is no longer the case. A new strain has come up that affects people who have not had any contact with hospitals. It is known as community-acquired MRSA, and is surprisingly lethal. McKenna's style is aptly suited to this type of book, as there is a lot of medical jargon that requires a deft hand to explain to people with little to no knowledge in that particular area. This is accomplished through what I can only describe as a massive amount of interviews and research with individuals whose lives have been affected by MRSA. This book raises a lot of issues regarding the sanitary procedures performed at hospitals, the over-prescription of antibiotics in both people and animals, and the sheer speed in which MRSA can adapt. Reading this book may seem like some sort of scare tactic, and it is. But it is the sort of thing people NEED to hear. McKenna uses people whose lives have been affected by MRSA to tell the story, and only breaks away from the narrative for context. Simply put, it is a superbly written science book that reads like a novel. There are parts of this book which may be difficult to read if you are squeamish, specifically where she describes the various symptoms that people infected with MRSA had to deal with. And, not all the people you meet throughout the book survive, as MRSA is an indiscriminate killer. SUPERBUG is a very impressive book that has some very important lessons to teach us about microbial evolution, and the huge effect it can have on the human population.