Influenza The hundred-year hunt to cure the deadliest disease in history

Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The influenza pandemic of 1918 was responsible for an estimated 50-100 million deaths worldwide. A century later, The flu is still a serial killer, writes emergency-medicine physician Brown. He laments that there is yet no highly effective means to battle it. Current antiviral medicines, such as Tamiflu, are not very helpful. Flu vaccines typically hover around a 50 percent efficacy rate. Brown smartly examines this viral infection from all sorts of angles medical history, virology, diagnosis and treatment, economics and epidemiology health-care policy, and prevention. One chapter chronicles the controversial and remarkable resurrection of the 1918 flu virus. In 1997, a scientist dug up the body of a 1918 Alaskan flu victim whose lungs contained intact virus particles preserved by the permafrost. In 2005, a CDC lab re-created versions of the 1918 influenza virus that were able to infect animals. Also known as Spanish influenza or the grippe, the 1918 virus has only eight genes. To add to the danger, many flu deaths are the result of secondary bacterial-pneumonia infections. Although our knowledge of the flu has increased significantly in 100 years, it remains a dire threat. The world awaits a medication that can successfully subdue the influenza virus.--Tony Miksanek Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Brown, director of the Office of Emergency Care Research at the National Institutes of Health, marks the 100th anniversary of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic with this no-nonsense account of medicine's long battle against influenza. Brown recounts the "epic effort" in the 1990s to resurrect and genetically decode the Spanish flu, which, in addition to triggering concern that "all this tinkering was creating superviruses," underscored influenza's elusiveness. As an experienced ER doctor, he also offers plain advice on dealing with the virus, such as, "If you are a healthy person with run-of-the-mill flu, you should not ask for antibiotics," since "antibiotics don't fight viruses." Shifting perspective from professional physician to epidemiologist, he discusses the failure of big data to signal flu outbreaks and reviews strategies for early flu detection including Google Flu Trends and FluTrackers.com, saying, "The influenza virus, a most primitive organism, seems to run circles around our advanced technology." Critical of the pharmaceutical lobby's role in creating flu scares, and skeptical of the U.S.'s "[flu] vaccination for all" policy, Brown, with his clear message that human intellect is no match for viral ingenuity, adds a grim note to the stockpile of books on influenza. Agent: Michael Palgon, the Palgon Co. (Dec.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

The perplexing story of the flu, a virus that causes fevers and sore throatsand kills more than 30,000 Americans each year.Even now, a century after the great flu pandemic of 1918, which left an estimated 50 to 100 million people dead worldwide, there's still no cure, writes Brown, an ER veteran and director of the National Institutes of Health's Office of Emergency Care Research. In his debut, he traces the millions-of-years history of the virus, efforts to understand and treat it, and its many devastating outbreaks. "We know its genetic code, how it mutates, and how it makes us sick, and yet we still don't have effective ways to fight it," he writes. The author begins with the 1918 pandemic"a global health crisis that killed more people than any other illness in recorded history"which probably began in France, or Kansas, or even China (we do not know), prompted many ineffective treatments (from enemas to bloodletting), and had the worst impact on the elderly and those with compromised immune systems. Found in humans and other speciesand able to cross from animals to people, hence the "swine" and "avian" fluthe virus invades cells, reproduces, and moves on to colonize other victims. The 1918 outbreak occurred late in World War I and killed 675,000 Americans, spreading rapidly in crowded tenements, Army camps, and large War Bond rallies. Despite prohibitions, many people kept spitting in the streets. Most cases cured themselves (they still do); others disguised themselves from immune defenses. Antibiotics and preventive vaccines have helped in treatment, but there is no "safe and effective drug that can destroy the virus." Writing in a conversational style, Brown also covers the discovery of the 1918 virus in frozen victims, the hunt for vaccines, the collection of data, and American efforts to prepare for future outbreaks. One leading expert told him, "I've been thinking about the flu for twenty years, and I know nothing."A solid book of popular science. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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