Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #861459 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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.

Synopsis
Traces the spread of several new animal-related diseases, including "mad cow disease" and others that have spread throughout Europe and may soon emerge in the United States.

From the Author
Thanks for your reviews--and a few corrections.
Glad to see an ongoing debate on the issues I report in my book. "dseamon" (03/27/97) misreads my statement, though: the 700,000 BSE-infected cattle entered the human food supply over ten years, not annualy, so 2 percent is accurate. "YYYguise's" (04/11/97) review is deliberately misleading, borrowed in part from a review in the conservative rag "The Weekly Standard" (the ad hominem attack on my supposed preoccupation with cannibalism). It's true I didn't talk to USDA scientists (why would I want to do that? their activities and their views have been widely published). I interviewed all the leading specialists in the field of TSE studies with the exception of Stanley Prusiner, who chose not to talk to me--as Oliver Sacks authoritatively confirms in his recent enthusiastic New Yorker review. I also spoke with scientists at the FDA. It's not hype that Mad Cow disease is transmissible to humans: that's what British and French scientists have concluded about the 17 human deaths they've identified so far from a new form of CJD.

But I'm glad some reviewers noticed that the book is a medical detective story, filled with interesting characters. Carleton Gajdusek is preeminent among them. I would certainly defend the quality of his science. His admission of guilt on two charges of child molestation for sexual activity with two teenaged boys is indefensible, and I don't "defend" him in this matter, but I do report it.

Customer Reviews

It's fillet only from now on
Richard Rhodes visits a topic that no one wants to talk about. I first read about the New Guinea Fore tribe and their sorcery illness (which came to be known to western science as "kuru") in an anthropology class. I remember being horrified by the idea that people would eat spoiled pork, much less each other. The more I know about how meat is prepared and consumed in the United States, the less horrific the Fore diet seems. It is not a big surprise to find out that there are likely contaminates in American beef just like the ones in British beef. Rhodes' scientists estimated that by 2015, there may be 200,000 deaths annually as a result of bovine spongiform encephalytis (BVE) which is the god-fearing American's version of Mad Cow Disease. Well, if we start feeding our cows vegetarian diets (which is what they are supposed to be eating anyway), and when we slaughter them we are mindful of the spinal column and brain, then we should be able to manage the situation. Imagine, there's spinal cord and brain tissue in hamburger, unless the butchering is done with care. Why shouldn't the butchering process be as mindful in the slaughterhouse as it is on the farm? All we have to save is our souls (well, our brains anyway.)

Terrifying overview on the food we eat
Some people prefer to bury their heads in the sand until a public health crisis emerges. Others, like to predict the end of civilization. In DEADLY FEAST Rhodes allows us to see the consquences of both approaches. Rhodes will enlighten you in ways you might not be prepared about prions, the damage they can do and how they've infiltrated the food chain through careless use of animal feed. Although we don't have a full understanding of prions or the new threat they may consitute, Rhodes gives as complete a picture as possible of the impact of this "disease" on both our food supply and humanity.

This book isn't designed to scare, but scare it does, particularly on the ways government manages to overlook public health issues for the convience of business and profit. Will this disease have the devasting impact that Rhodes projects? It's hard to say, but if government and industry continue to do nothing about this, it's safe to say that Rhodes' predictions are bound to happen sometime.

Although not a perfect book(there are still too many questions and too much open to debate about prions), DEADLY FEAST is a very thought provoking book that will change your perspective about how our society operates and the continued threat of nature to our way of life.

classic medical detective story
Richard Rhodes provides a spectacular account of the discovery and elucidation of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. From cannibal feasts in the south pacific to the technocanibalism of the British beef industry, this book provides a concise summary of the last fifty years worth of research into "prions." Rhodes is also careful to scrutinize and question some of the most contentious points about prions, including Prusiner's assertions that eventual led to his receiving a nobel prize. This book truly captures the essence and magnitude of the public health dilemna surrounding TSEs. Overall a great work. Caution: readers who don't have a rudimentary grasp of genetics might want to have a medical dictionary handy.