Maryn McKenna

I have to admit that sometimes I get conscious consumer fatigue and just buy cheap food at the discount grocery. We're all going to die eventually (though it often seems more imminent these days) so what's the difference between a $1.69 chicken breast family pack and the air chilled locally raised butchered on site chicken at $5.99 from the butcher shop? But then I read books like this and have to remind myself, it's not just what I'm eating, it's supply and demand, supporting causes with my show more money as well as my tweets. Although, to be honest, reading books like this also make me hate capitalism and lobbyists and science-deniers and the fact that money and profit drive everything. show less

A fascinating insight in the real work of the uniformed services of the CDC: the EIS first-reaction corps. Of course, it is not glamorous and magic-tech ala TV's Bones, etc. It is dedicated, innovated, and intelligent people with low budgets and ill-fitted to stringent bereaucracy. I really enjoyed the breathless overviews of tackling TB in alternative lifestyle communities on the East Coast, SARS in Asia, AIDS in Africa, etc.

An informative, non-technical book about MRSA. Scarey. The author should have added more technical information and statistics, but otherwise interesting reading.

This book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about joining and working for the EIS, which is like the CIA but with biohazards and diseases. The gore is kept to a minimum and the workings of government are kept to a maximum, which means it can get dull at times. The people outlined in this book are described well, but not well enough that I care to follow their particular career path. I was more interested in how the outbreaks were contained, what the particular epidemic did, etc.

I show more did learn a lot of interesting stats about listeria and SARS. I may never eat cold cuts again. show less