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Recommended Reading
If you are
interested in reading more about E.coli O157
and foodborne illnesses, read the following
books:
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 THE
COMING PLAGUE - Newly Emerging Diseases in a
World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett
(Farrar Straus Giroux). Pulitzer Prize winner
Laurie Garrett has written a compelling account
of the challenges that Nature continually throws
at human civilization in the form of infectious
diseases. Like earthquakes and hurricanes, the
devastating diseases that periodically emerge--so
vividly described by her--remind us how thin is
the veneer that separates our high-tech society
from personal and communal disaster. By embedding
the story of AIDS in stories about so many
recently emerged microbes, she reminds us that
AIDS is not a unique occurrence but rather that
any change in the habits of a society is likely
to lead to unforeseen and potentially disastrous
consequences. "The Coming Plague is required reading for anyone who wants to
understand the march of contemporary world
history." -- Dr.
David Baltimore, Ivan R. Cottrell
Professor of Molecular Biology and Immunology,
M.I.T.; winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology
and Medicine |
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 E.COLI
O157 - The True Story of a Mother's Battle with a
Killer Microbe by Mary Heersink (New
Horizon Press). E.coli O157
details the emotionally charged true-life medical
drama of a mother, Mary Heersink, and her
eleven-year-old son, Damion, who is struck down.
It is a harrowing account of their struggle to
stop the killer microbe as it races through the
boy's bloodstream, attacking vital organs one at
a time. Resistant to all drugs, the mysterious
pathogen races doctors and investigators against
the ticking clock of death while the threat to
the rest of the world grows. "A stirring
medical melodrama." -- Kirkus
Review |
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 SPOILED
- The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain Gone
Haywire by Nichols Fox (Basic Books).
Spoiled apple juice. Tainted fast-food
hamburgers. Contaminated raspberries. As reports
of foodborne disease make the headlines with
alarming regularity, we are beginning to wonder
if every bite we take poses a risk. Why are
familiar foods making us sick? Are these food
scares mere hype and hysteria or is there a
bigger and more frightening story behind the
headlines? Journalist Nichols fox has spent the
past several years researching a story that won't
go away. Pulling together the pieces of a complex
chain of events for the reader, she tells in
arresting detail what has happened to food and
why. Drawing from scientific and medical journals
and more than 100 interviews with
epidemiologists, physicians, food scientists,
USDA and FDA officials, farmers, distributors,
and consumer victims, her findings are
fascinating, provocative, and terrifying. Nichols
Fox is a journalist whose work has appeared in
major publications. She eats well, but carefully.
"As long as we insist on getting our food
dirt-cheap and from a distance, we can expect
precisely the sort of problems Nichols Fox
chronicles so ably in this book. She reminds us
that just because we grew up doing it this way,
it's not necessarily wise." -- Bill McKibben, author
of The End of Nature |
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 DEADLY
FEASTS - Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New
Plague by Richard Rhodes (Simon &
Schuster). Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The
Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun:
The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, tracks the
threatening emergence of a new group of bizarre,
deadly brain diseases know as transmissible
spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) that kill 100%
of the animals and humans they infect. The
best-know is mad cow disease (bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, BSE), which has infected hundreds
of thousands of cattle in Great Britain and
Europe and has now begun killing humans who have
eaten infected beef. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration announced in early January 1997
that it would soon ban the feeding of processed
ruminant animal wastes to cattle--believed to be
the cause of the British contagion--tacitly
acknowledging what TSE experts have warned for
years: that a form of BSE infects US cattle and
could spread to infect Americans who eat beef.
The US rendering industry estimates that
incinerating or burying the millions of tons of
perishable animal wastes which it formerly
processed and sold for recycling into food
animals will cost it $1.6 billion a year.
"Gripping. . .A powerful and alarming book.
. .Rhodes weaves careful research and powerful
stories into a chilling narrative that often
reads more like science fiction" -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) |
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 SLAUGHTERHOUSE
: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and
Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry by Gail Eisnitz
(Prometheus Books). With powerful
descriptions reminiscent of Upton Sinclair's
masterpiece The Jungle, this book takes
a shocking, frightening look at where our beef,
poultry, and pork are "mass-produced."
This book will open your eyes! If you're a
meat-eater now, you won't be after reading this
book. Gail Eisnitz reveals the whole disturbing
truth behind the horrifying effects the nation's
slaughterhouses have on (nonhuman) animals and
people alike. This book will truly open your eyes
to not only the suffering other sentient beings
are forced to endure, but also to the danger you
are putting your life in every time you eat a
piece of meat. |
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 TOXIN
by Robin Cook (Putnam Publishing Group). Just when you thought it was safe to eat a hamburger again, Robin Cook--master of medical mysteries, deadly epidemics, and creepy comas--returns with an all too likely villain drawn right from current headlines: the American meat industry. If you've ever wondered where the
E.coli bacteria comes from, and exactly how it can ravage the human body, destroying everything in its path, this is the book for you. As usual, Cook delivers solid information, well-researched medical arcana, and a scathing indictment of managed health care.
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 FAST
FOOD NATION by Eric Schlosser (Houghton Mifflin). This
myth-shattering book tells the story of America and the
world’s infatuation with fast food, from its origins in
1950s southern California to the global triumph of a handful
of burger and fried chicken chains. In a meticulously
researched and powerfully argued account, Eric Schlosser
visits the labs where scientists re-create the smell and taste
of everything - from cooked meat to fresh strawberries; talks
to the workers at abattoirs with some of the worst safety
records in the world; explains exactly where the meat comes
from and just why the fries taste so good; and looks at the
way the fast food industry is transforming not only our diet
but our landscape, economy, workforce and culture.
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