Maryn McKenna

A portrait of the detective corps of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shares behind-the-scenes information about their work in countering such threats as SARS, the anthrax attacks, and the West Nile virus. 50,000 first printing.

On the Front Lines with the Disease Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service

Beating Back the Devil

"Americans eat chicken more than any other meat. But our nation's favorite food comes with an invisible cost: its insidious effect on our health. In this extraordinary narrative, acclaimed journalist Maryn McKenna reveals how antibiotic use has altered the way we consume industrially raised meat, and its impact on our daily lives. Drawing on decades of research, as well as interviews with entrepreneurs, epidemiologists, and other specialists, McKenna spins an astonishing story of science gone wrong. In the middle of the last century, antibiotics fueled the rapid rise of chicken from local delicacy to everyday protein source. But with that spectacular growth came great risk. As resistance to new wonder drugs crept into the farming process, bacterial outbreaks became harder to treat. And the consequences-to agriculture, to human health, and to modern medicine-were devastating. Beginning with the push to make chicken the affordable entrée of choice and tracing its evolution to a global commodity and carrier of foodborne illness, McKenna shines a light on the hidden forces of industrialization, the repercussions of runaway antibiotic use, and the outcome for future generations. Taking readers from the first poultry farms on the Delmarva Peninsula to the little-known lab where the chicken nugget was invented and into today's factory farms, McKenna reveals that the history of chicken is as much about economics, politics, and culture as it is about what we eat. In these vivid pages, she gives voice to a vanguard of farmers, chefs, and activists who are seeking to return poultry to an honored place at the table-and are changing the way we think about food. Incisive and beautifully written, Big Chicken is a cautionary tale of an industry that lost its way-and shows us the way back to healthier eating"--Back cover.

The Incredible Story of how Antibiotics Created Modern Agriculture and Changed the Way the World Eats

Big Chicken

Deeply researched revelation of escalating danger of drug-resistant bacteria, MSRA.

The Fatal Menace of MRSA

Superbug

how MRSA has surged out of control and is lurking in all corners of our lives

The universal human instinct is to run from an outbreak of disease like Ebola. These doctors run toward it. Their job is to stop epidemics from happening. They are the disease detective corps of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal agency that tracks and tries to prevent disease outbreaks and bioterrorist attacks around the world. They are formally called the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS)—a group founded more than fifty years ago out of fear that the Korean War might bring the use of biological weapons—and, like intelligence operatives in the traditional sense, they perform their work largely in anonymity. They are not household names, but over the years they were first to confront the outbreaks that became known as hantavirus, Ebola, and AIDS. Every day they work to protect us by hunting down the deadly threats that we forget until they dominate our headlines, West Nile virus, anthrax, and SARS among others. In this riveting narrative, Maryn McKenna—the only journalist ever given full access to the EIS in its fifty-three-year history—follows the first class of disease detectives to come to the CDC after September 11, the first to confront not just naturally occurring outbreaks but the man-made threat of bioterrorism. They are talented researchers—many with young families—who trade two years of low pay and extremely long hours for the chance to be part of the group that are on the frontlines, in the yellow suits and masks, that has helped eradicate smallpox, push back polio, and solve the first major outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, toxic shock syndrome, and E. coli O157 and works to battle every new disease before it becomes an epidemic. Urgent, exhilarating, and compelling, Beating Back the Devil takes you inside the world of these medical detectives who are trying to stop the next epidemic—before the epidemics stop us.

'This is an important book. You can't understand the radical cheapening of food, with all its unpleasant effects, for farm animals and our most cherished rural landscapes, until you begin to understand the industrialisation of chicken. Industrial chicken is now displacing many more sustainable farming systems, driving them out of business. This book explains how that happened and why we should all be worried about it and demand change' James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life Plucked! examines everything that has gone wrong in the modern agricultural system: overuse of antibiotics, threats to the environment, violations of animal welfare, destruction of farming communities, disruption of international trade and delivery of over-processed, obesity-promoting, nutritionally hollow food. Drawing on years of research into the 'big chicken' industry, acclaimed science writer Maryn McKenna uncovers the people searching for solutions and seeking to return chicken to a sustainable and honoured place on our plate and asking whether, with reform, chicken can safely feed the world. Rich with characters who together propelled the story of chicken's unintended consequences, Plucked! will reveal how the antibiotic era created modern agriculture. It is an eye-opening exploration of how the world's most popular meat came to define so much more than just chicken nuggets.

Maryn McKenna

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