Flu Hunter

Author : Robert G. Webster
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Avian influenza
ISBN : 1988531314

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Flu Hunter by Robert G. Webster Pdf

When a new influenza virus emerges that is able to be transmitted between humans, it spreads globally as a pandemic, often with high mortality. Enormous social disruption and substantial economic cost can result. The 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic was undoubtedly the most devastating influenza pandemic to date, and it has been Dr Robert Websters lifes work to figure out how and why. In so doing he has made a remarkable contribution to our understanding of the evolution of influenza viruses and how to control them. A century on, Flu Hunter is a gripping account of the tenacious scientific detective work involved in revealing the secrets of this killer virus. Dubbed Flu Hunter by Smithsonian Magazine in 2006, Dr Webster began his research in the early 1960s with the insight that the natural ecology of most influenza viruses is among wild aquatic birds. Painstaking tracking and testing of thousands of birds eventually led him and the other scientists involved to establish a link between these bird virus reservoirs and human influenza pandemics. Some of this fascinating scientific work involved exhuming bodies of Spanish flu victims from the Arctic permafrost in a search for tissue samples containing genetic material from the virus. Could a global influenza pandemic occur again? Websters warning is clear: "... it is not only possible, it is just a matter of when."

Author : Kirsty Duncan
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2006-01-01
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780802094568

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Hunting the 1918 Flu by Kirsty Duncan Pdf

A detailed account of Kristy Duncan's experiences as she organized a multi-national, multi-discipline scientific expedition to exhume the bodies of a group of Norwegian miners, victims of the 1918 Spanish flu.

Author : Jeremy Brown
Publisher : Thorndike Press Large Print
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2019-08-21
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1432865005

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Influenza by Jeremy Brown Pdf

On the 100th anniversary of the pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, veteran ER doctor and Director of Emergency Care Research at the National Institutes of Health, explores the troubling and complex history of the flu virus. He breaks down the current dialogue about the disease, explaining the controversy over vaccinations, antiviral drugs, and the federal government's role in preparing for pandemic outbreaks. Influenza is an enlightening and unnerving look at a deadly virus that has been around longer than people and may be for many more years before we are able to conquer it for good.

Author : Jeremy Brown
Publisher : Atria Books
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2019-10-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781501181252

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Influenza by Jeremy Brown Pdf

“Highlights that influenza is still a real and present threat and demonstrates the power and limitations of modern medicine.” —The Wall Street Journal “A surprisingly compelling and accessible story of one of the world’s most deadly diseases. It is timely and interesting, engaging and sobering.” —David Gregort, CNN political analyst and former moderator for NBC’s Meet the Press A veteran ER doctor explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history and present-day research of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure? While influenza is now often thought of as a common but mild disease, it still kills more than thirty thousand people in the United States each year. Dr. Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor and director of the Office of Emergency Care Research at the National Institutes of Health, talks with leading epidemiologists, policy makers, and the researcher who first sequenced the genetic building blocks of the original 1918 virus to offer both a comprehensive history and a road map to protect us from the next outbreak. Dr. Brown explores the terrifying and complex history of the flu virus and looks at the controversy over vaccinations and the federal government’s role in preparing for pandemic outbreaks. Though a hundred years of advancement in medical research and technology have passed since the 1918 disaster, Dr. Brown warns that many of the most vital questions about the flu virus continue to confound even the leading experts.

Author : Kirsty Duncan
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:1412078399

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Hunting the 1918 Flu by Kirsty Duncan Pdf

Author : Rob Wallace
Publisher : NYU Press
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2016-06-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781583675908

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Big Farms Make Big Flu by Rob Wallace Pdf

The first collection to explore infectious disease, agriculture, economics, and the nature of science together Thanks to breakthroughs in production and food science, agribusiness has been able to devise new ways to grow more food and get it more places more quickly. There is no shortage of news items on hundreds of thousands of hybrid poultry—each animal genetically identical to the next—packed together in megabarns, grown out in a matter of months, then slaughtered, processed and shipped to the other side of the globe. Less well known are the deadly pathogens mutating in, and emerging out of, these specialized agro-environments. In fact, many of the most dangerous new diseases in humans can be traced back to such food systems, among them Campylobacter, Nipah virus, Q fever, hepatitis E, and a variety of novel influenza variants. Agribusiness has known for decades that packing thousands of birds or livestock together results in a monoculture that selects for such disease. But market economics doesn't punish the companies for growing Big Flu—it punishes animals, the environment, consumers, and contract farmers. Alongside growing profits, diseases are permitted to emerge, evolve, and spread with little check. “That is,” writes evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace, “it pays to produce a pathogen that could kill a billion people.” In Big Farms Make Big Flu, a collection of dispatches by turns harrowing and thought-provoking, Wallace tracks the ways influenza and other pathogens emerge from an agriculture controlled by multinational corporations. Wallace details, with a precise and radical wit, the latest in the science of agricultural epidemiology, while at the same time juxtaposing ghastly phenomena such as attempts at producing featherless chickens, microbial time travel, and neoliberal Ebola. Wallace also offers sensible alternatives to lethal agribusiness. Some, such as farming cooperatives, integrated pathogen management, and mixed crop-livestock systems, are already in practice off the agribusiness grid. While many books cover facets of food or outbreaks, Wallace's collection appears the first to explore infectious disease, agriculture, economics and the nature of science together. Big Farms Make Big Flu integrates the political economies of disease and science to derive a new understanding of the evolution of infections. Highly capitalized agriculture may be farming pathogens as much as chickens or corn.

Author : Frédéric Keck
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 162 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2020-01-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781478007555

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Avian Reservoirs by Frédéric Keck Pdf

After experiencing the SARS outbreak in 2003, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan all invested in various techniques to mitigate future pandemics involving myriad cross-species interactions between humans and birds. In some locations microbiologists allied with veterinarians and birdwatchers to follow the mutations of flu viruses in birds and humans and create preparedness strategies, while in others, public health officials worked toward preventing pandemics by killing thousands of birds. In Avian Reservoirs Frédéric Keck offers a comparative analysis of these responses, tracing how the anticipation of bird flu pandemics has changed relations between birds and humans in China. Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnographic fieldwork, Keck demonstrates that varied strategies dealing with the threat of pandemics—stockpiling vaccines and samples in Taiwan, simulating pandemics in Singapore, and monitoring viruses and disease vectors in Hong Kong—reflect local geopolitical relations to mainland China. In outlining how interactions among pathogens, birds, and humans shape the way people imagine future pandemics, Keck illuminates how interspecies relations are crucial for protecting against such threats.

Author : Pete Davies
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Influenza
ISBN : STANFORD:36105024916707

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Catching Cold by Pete Davies Pdf

This text presents the story of the 1918 flu pandemic and discusses current scientific efforts to isolate the particular strain that was so virulent, in order to prevent the same tragedy from striking again.

Author : Richard E. Neustadt
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1978
Category : Medical policy
ISBN : UOM:39015035690802

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The Swine Flu Affair by Richard E. Neustadt Pdf

In 1976, a small group of soldiers at Fort Dix were infected with a swine flu virus that was deemed similar to the virus responsible for the great 1918-19 world-wide flu pandemic. The U.S. government initiated an unprecedented effort to immunize every American against the disease. While a qualified success in terms of numbers reached-more than 40 million Americans received the vaccine-the disease never reappeared. The program was marked by controversy, delay, administrative troubles, legal complications, unforeseen side effects and a progressive loss of credibility for public health authorities. In the waning days of the flu season, the incoming Secretary of what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Joseph Califano, asked Richard Neustadt and Harvey Fineberg to examine what happened and to extract lessons to help cope with similar situations in the future.

Author : Pete Davies
Publisher : Holt Paperbacks
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2000-10-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0805066225

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The Devil's Flu by Pete Davies Pdf

A gripping account of the 1918 flu pandemic and the modern-day hunt for this elusive and deadly virus In 1918, a flu virus more lethal than any that has come along since swept through the world, from the remotest villages in Arctic climates to crowded U.S.cities to the battlefields of Europe, killing forty million people. Yet, despite its devastating toll and the probability that other deadly pandemics await on the horizon, it was relegated to a footnote in history. The Devil's Flu is the extraordinary story of 1918's forgotten tragedy and of the global scientific community's effort to avert another such disaster. The 1918 flu still so intrigues and frightens experts in the field that in 1998, a group of respected scientists journeyed to the Norwegian Arctic Circle in search of the mysterious killer. In The Devil's Flu, Davies captures the excitement of the hunt and the intense rivalries within the scientific community, and paints a vivid portrait of the eccentric scientists bent on capturing the prize information that could hold the key to our future safety. And as far as the next pandemic is concerned, scientists agree: it's not a question of if, but when.

Author : Lee Goldberg
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2007-01-02
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9781101010754

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Mr. Monk and The Blue Flu by Lee Goldberg Pdf

Based on the hit TV series! Monk is horrified when he learns there’s going to be a blue flu in San Francisco. He doesn’t understand what the blue flu is, but it sounds terrible. Stottlemeyer explains that it’s not really a virus. The police force plans to call in “sick” until they get a better contract. The good news is the labor dispute will give Monk a chance to get back on the force. The bad news is it means he’ll be a “scab”—and he doesn’t like the sound of that either. Before he knows it, Monk has his badge back, and his own squad to command. Unfortunately, some of the squad members make Monk look like a paragon of mental health. But despite the challenges, they’ll have to pull together to catch an astrologer’s killer, solve a series of mysterious fatal assaults, and most importantly, clean up their desks.

Author : Jaime Breitnauer
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2020-02-19
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781526745187

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The Spanish Flu Epidemic and Its Influence on History by Jaime Breitnauer Pdf

A look at the 1918 influenza pandemic from its outbreak to its effects on the global population and its legacy. On the second Monday of March, 1918, the world changed forever. What seemed like a harmless cold morphed into a global pandemic that would wipe out as many as a hundred-million people—ten times as many as the Great War. German troops faltered, lending the allies the winning advantage, and India turned its sights to independence while South Africa turned to God. In Western Samoa, a quarter of the population died; in some parts of Alaska, whole villages were wiped out. Civil unrest sparked by influenza shaped nations and heralded a new era of public health where people were no longer blamed for contracting disease. Using real case histories, we take a journey through the world in 1918, and look at the impact of Spanish flu on populations from America to France and the Arctic, and at the scientific legacy this deadly virus has left behind. “Breitnauer puts the whole thing into perspective with a fascinating account of the origin and extent of the outbreak, at a time when people were returning from the conflict expecting a brave new world and instead confronting one of the deadliest epidemics ever to hit mankind.” —Books Monthly (UK)

Author : Institute of Medicine,Board on Global Health,Forum on Microbial Threats
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 431 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2005-04-09
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780309095044

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The Threat of Pandemic Influenza by Institute of Medicine,Board on Global Health,Forum on Microbial Threats Pdf

Public health officials and organizations around the world remain on high alert because of increasing concerns about the prospect of an influenza pandemic, which many experts believe to be inevitable. Moreover, recent problems with the availability and strain-specificity of vaccine for annual flu epidemics in some countries and the rise of pandemic strains of avian flu in disparate geographic regions have alarmed experts about the world's ability to prevent or contain a human pandemic. The workshop summary, The Threat of Pandemic Influenza: Are We Ready? addresses these urgent concerns. The report describes what steps the United States and other countries have taken thus far to prepare for the next outbreak of "killer flu." It also looks at gaps in readiness, including hospitals' inability to absorb a surge of patients and many nations' incapacity to monitor and detect flu outbreaks. The report points to the need for international agreements to share flu vaccine and antiviral stockpiles to ensure that the 88 percent of nations that cannot manufacture or stockpile these products have access to them. It chronicles the toll of the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating among poultry in many parts of Asia, which now accounts for the culling of millions of birds and the death of at least 50 persons. And it compares the costs of preparations with the costs of illness and death that could arise during an outbreak.

Author : John M. Barry
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 580 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2005-10-04
Category : History
ISBN : 0143036491

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The Great Influenza by John M. Barry Pdf

#1 New York Times bestseller “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”—Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."—Chicago Tribune The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, "The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that...those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart." At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

Author : Laura Spinney
Publisher : Random House
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2017-06-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781473523920

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Pale Rider by Laura Spinney Pdf

Read the devastating story of the Spanish flu - the twentieth century's greatest killer – and discover what it can teach us about the current Covid-19 pandemic. 'Both a saga of tragedies and a detective story... Pale Rider is not just an excavation but a reimagining of the past' Guardian With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918–1920 was the greatest human disaster, not only of the twentieth century, but possibly in all of recorded history. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I. In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain, and from South Africa to Odessa. She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered; and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test. Laura Spinney demonstrates that the Spanish flu was as significant – if not more so – as two world wars in shaping the modern world; in disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion and the arts. ‘Weaves together global history and medical science to great effect ... Riveting.’ Sunday Times