Review by New York Times Review
In the 1930s, the advent of sulfa drugs represented a turning point for the health care industry, previously limited in its ability to fight infectious disease. Doctors now had a potential cure for strep, meningitis and gonorrhea, while patients were for the first time requesting a specific treatment by name. In "Miracle Cure," Rosen skillfully blends scientific, political and economic history to trace the development of antibiotics and how they underwrote the modern pharmaceutical trade. He dedicates much of his narrative to penicillin, which catalyzed the greatest change in both industry and clinical practice, starting with the Scottish physician Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery, in the 1920s, that a penicillin-producing fungus slowed the growth of staph bacteria in a petri dish. In 1940, British researchers led by the Australian pathologist Howard Florey established the drug's efficacy in mice. Recognizing the mass-market potential, Florey enlisted the United States Department of Agriculture's Northern Regional lab in Illinois, where a bacteriologist found "a mold so powerful that it would, by the end of the 1940s, be the ancestral source for virtually all of the world's penicillin." For Rosen, part of what made penicillin's path so revolutionary was the government's reliance on private companies like Pfizer and Merck to produce large quantities of the compound as part of the war effort. The lucrative federal contracts these entities received muscled out competitors and established Big Pharma as we know it. "The only comparable events in American economic history were the deals that built the transcontinental railroad and allocated the radio broadcast spectrum." Other antibiotics followed, promising to cure diseases from typhus to tuberculosis. Enter the age of drug-resistant "superbugs," the consequence of corporate marketing, prescription-happy physicians and the use of growthinducing antibiotics in livestock. Rosen's take on this crisis is understandably cursory, given that he died of cancer shortly after finishing the book. He does make clear, though, that the current pipeline is meager, and the future of antibiotics insecure.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 24, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
Like any good story, the creation of antibiotics involves compelling characters, exotic (and mundane) settings, conflict, and a theme. Add a heaping of dirt and mold, because these wonder drugs were often derived from bacteria in soil. Rosen (The Most Powerful Idea in the World, 2010) follows antibiotics from their detection to industrial development to proliferation to overutilization. Such familiar figures as Alexander Fleming and Paul Ehrlich are introduced, along with many others, including doctors, chemists, government officials, philanthropists, and drug company executives. Antibiotics have been likened to magic bullets, targeting a disease-causing microbe without injuring the human host. Golden-age antibiotics (penicillin, streptomycin, tetracycline, erythromycin, chloramphenicol) are reviewed, with special attention paid to the discovery and mass production of penicillin, which involved physician Howard Florey, manufacturing innovations, and a moldy cantaloupe in a Peoria, Illinois, market. Presently, the introduction of new antibiotics is dangerously slow; fewer than 100 are currently available. The war between man and pathogenic microbes continues to be waged, and our arsenal of antibiotics sure can use an upgrade.--Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Former publisher and editor Rosen (The Third Horseman) tackles a dazzling chapter of modern medical history in this chronicle of the discoveries that opened the age of antibiotics and gave humankind its first effective tool to fight back in an "eons-long war" with infectious disease. It was a breathtaking leap of innovation. Rosen deftly recounts the early work of such pioneers as Louis Pasteur, who established the germ theory; Robert Koch, who linked a microorganism to a single disease; Paul Ehrlich, producer of the world's first synthetic chemotherapeutic agent; Gerhard Domagk, whose lab found the first successful antibacterial drug; and Alexander Fleming, the man who discovered penicillin. Rosen posits that 19th- and 20th-century scientists' most enduring contributions might have been institutional, in the forms of biological laboratory development and massive corporate funding from such giants as Merck, Pfizer, and Squibb that fueled the revolution in medicine. "Every triumphal discovery" in the dawning age of antibiotics, Rosen eloquently notes, "has been followed, sometimes in a matter of months, by a reminder that the enemy in this particular war may lose individual battles, but that the war against it is essentially eternal." Rosen's thoughtful, scholarly, and engaging history is a powerful testament to this fight. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A richly documented history of the riseand threatened futureof antibiotics.Before the invention of antibiotics, doctors practiced "heroic medicine," rebalancing the body's humors with bloodletting, blistering, purges, enemas, and other primitive techniques. But in the late 1800s came Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, and suddenly the world knew that cholera, plague, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and other maladies were caused by invisible microbes: bacteria. So began the hunt for remedies. There were some successesantitoxin for diphtheria, a vaccine for anthraxbut competition and venomous rivalries prevailed, pitting Pasteur against Koch, France against Germany. Rosen's (The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century, 2014, etc.) warts-and-all sketches of the key figures serve as refreshing antidotes to the hero-worship texts we read as schoolchildren. The author also deftly contrasts Germany's synthetic dye industry, which funded research that led to Paul Ehrlich's Salvarsan for syphilis, with the feeble research support elsewhere. But the real revolution in remedies had to wait until World War II and the rediscovery of penicillin, when British scientists came to America for help in the fermentation process needed to generate copious amounts of the extract. Then came Selman Waksman, who coined the word "antibiotic" and found in a soil sample a bacterial strain that produced its own antibacterial product that worked against TB. The race was on for other useful soil microbes, and numerous drug companies emerged (and merged), from small producers of herbals and botanicals to big-time generators of lucrative broad-spectrum antibiotics. Rosen also charts the course of the FDA and the development of testing and safety protocols. Unfortunately, the current scene is ominous. Antibiotic resistance is serious and continues to grow thanks to low dosages of antibiotics still allowed in animal feeds. Rosen offers some hope regarding new approaches to combat resistance, but they seem meager. An encyclopedic reference for researchers and practitioners but also accessible for general readers due to Rosen's lively depiction of the people, places, and politics that color the history of the fight against infectious disease. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
