The Plague Makers: How We Are Creating Catastrophic New Epidemics-- And What We Must Do to Avert Them

Fisher's 1994 warning will throw a scare into the stoutest heart. Although the problem of antibiotic resistance has been known since the earliest fanfare surrounding penicillin, only in recent years, with media attention, is the public catching a glimmer of the problem's magnitude. Fisher's simple, well-organized explanations document the rise of resistant bacterial strains - many of them untreatable and often fatal, including strains of pneumonia and tuberculosis. Given appropriately for, say, TB infection, antibiotics kill off marauding bacteria, allowing the body's defenses and bacterial equilibrium to return to normal. Given inappropriately for, as often happens, a viral disease such as a cold, the antibiotic destroys susceptible bacteria, leaving the field to resistant bacteria, which gorge on nutrients, thrive and reproduce. Or, given over too short a period, the antibiotic allows resistant bacteria to thrive and pass on their resistance to other infection causing bacteria, such as TB. A particularly interesting and chilling chapter explores the possibility that antibiotic resistence is a co-factor in AIDS. Fisher claims that the HIV virus alone, which existed relatively harmlessly in Africa for decades, is insufficient to cause AIDS. He posits that resistent bacteria strains join forces with HIV to undermine the immune system and cause AIDS. To bolster his argument he offers supporting quotes from such luminaries as Luc Montagnier, the French discoverer of HIV and documents practices of indiscriminate antibiotic use among gay men and Africans. Strongly persuasive, concluding with suggestions for reversing the trend, this is a valuable, easily accesssible, and still timely work.