The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris (W.W. Norton), by Mark Honigsbaum
In the early 20th century, flu was dismissed as a minor illness for children and the elderly. And then, 50 million died worldwide from the Spanish flu, many of them victims in the prime of life. More recently, medical science declared that the Ebola virus was confined to equatorial jungles—until it reached big cities and traveled to Europe and North America.
Science writer Mark Honigsbaum cites those and other outbreaks as examples of medical researchers who became “prisoners of particular paradigms.” Other problems: The antibiotics that once trounced infections are racing against mutating microbes; disrupted social and environmental ecosystems have enabled animal illnesses to jump to humans, and the ease of travel has allowed their rapid spread. Honigsbaum’s warnings against scientific complacency are coupled with concerns over the panic-mongering of old-school and social media. Several promised pandemics in recent years have failed to materialize. The Pandemic Century is also an accessible account of swine flu, AIDS, Zika and many less-remembered deadly outbreaks.
