Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague - Softcover

Rhodes, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684819864 ISBN 13: 9780684819860

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 1998

Synopsis

Beginning at the scene of a cannibal feast in New Guinea that spread a fatal illness to all who participated, this book follows the trail of a group of related human and animal diseases spreading around the world. Collectively they have come to be called prion diseases, the best-known being mad-cow disease, and already it is believed by some in Britain and elsewhere in Europe that there is danger in eating beef, and possibly also lamb, venison, pork and chicken. The author raises the spectre of what he contends is an ineradicable, untreatable, fatal disease whose spread is insidious and, unless urgent action is taken, unstoppable. The book calls into question the wisdom of transplants and the safety of milk, meat, gelatine, soap, surgical sutures, supplements in processed foods, and even leather goods and common garden bonemeal. Rhodes's other books include "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", "Dark Sun", "Nuclear Renewal" and "A Hole in the World".

About this title

Review

Fans of The Hot Zone will find Deadly Feasts irresistible. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a gripping account of a disease and its discovery. If you thought the Ebola virus was bad news, check out transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Always fatal, they can lurk in a body for years before emerging to claim their victims by turning their brains to slush. At least Ebola sickens quickly and occasionally spares a life. Rhodes exaggerates when he calls this a "new plague" in his subtitle, but TSEs are to blame for the real-world disaster of mad cow disease in Britain. And they do pose a genuine threat to human life.

Review

"A vivid and engrossing account of a scientific saga worthy of Paul de Kruff's Microbe-Hunters."-Beryl Lieff Benderly, San Jose Mercury News

"Classic medical detective story."- George Johnson, The New York Times Book Review

"An Upton Sinclair-ish look inside the modern meat industry...Rhodes tells this medical detective story beautifully."-John Schwartz, The Washington Post

"[Rhodes] is a wonderful storyteller, Deadly Feasts is a great mystery story."-Nancy Schapiro, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Deadly Feasts is a breezy, immensely readable account....It is a splendid description of the process by which scientific knowledge is advanced."-Claudia Winkler, The Weekly Standard

"In the science literature of Armageddon, Deadly Feasts is in a class by itself....Rhodes is able to make hard science come alive."-Peter Collier, Chicago Tribune

"Deadly Feasts is a book to be read and pondered carefully -- and perhaps acted on -- possibly before eating one's next hamburger."-Oliver Sacks, The New Yorker

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684819864
• ISBN 13: 9780684819860
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272