TITLE:  Deadly Feasts: The Prion Controversy and the Public's Health

AUTHOR:  Richard Rhodes

DATE PUBLISHED:  1998

FORMAT:  ebook

ISBN-13:  9780684867601

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DESCRIPTION:

"In this brilliant and gripping medical detective story. Richard Rhodes follows virus hunters on three continents as they track the emergence of a deadly new brain disease that first kills cannibals in New Guinea, then cattle and young people in Britain and France—and that has already been traced to food animals in the United States. In a new afterword for the paperback, Rhodes reports the latest US and worldwide developments of a burgeoning global threat. "

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REVIEW:

This is a fast paced, fascinating and informative detective story that chronologically follows the discovery and investigation of a fatal "new" brain disease that leaves people and animals with brains full of holes, plagues and looking like disintegrating sponge.  There is adventure in New Guinea with cannibals, drama with sheep and strangley behaving cattle, scientists trying to find out how the disease progresses, what causes it and its methods of transmission within and between species,  as well as the political shenanigans when people start dying.  The tabloids would eventually call the disease "Mad Cow Disease".  Links between Kuru, Jakob-Crutzfeld diseas, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and scrapie (in sheep), are made, the "prion controversy" begins and public health issues are swept under the rug.  This book provides a fairly accurate description of how science gets done.  The book is not without its problems, but it still made for an entertaining and thought-provoking reading session (I read it in one night).

The book was published in 1998, so is a bit dated in terms of new information, but we still do not know the exact cause, means of diagnosis or any treatment for the diseases that we did't know in 1998.  In addition, the author's expected epidemic of human "Mad Cow Disease" victims didn't materialise...
                                                       ... yet.

PS:  Being a vegetarian is not necessarily going to save you from "Mad Cow Disease".

There is so much to love in this book! I've been wanting to read more about her ever since I first heard that it was Hedy Lamarr who had so much to do with today's technology and it did not disappoint.

The story was sure to be interesting, having heard about Lamarr's participation in this invention prior to reading (well, listening to) this book. I knew of her Hollywood fame too, and that she had emigrated to the US, but I didn't know about the Nazi ex or the way she came to acting or what prompted the invention.

The book takes the time to tell her whole story, not just the inventing timeframe. When I think of celebrity biographies, I don't tend to think of women who were on the run from Nazi's or who invent things. All told, her story is pretty exciting.

Funny enough, the word "folly" isn't totally appropriate but I get why it was used in the title here. She had all the beauty and brains that one could hope for, but she had made a fairly significant error in her calculations for what her invention could do or be used for and she trusted the wrong people, not that it was stolen. It just wasn't appreciated for what it could do. Her thoughts were on a weapon whose guidance can't be jammed while her idea was so much more versatile.

It was also nice to know that she did live to see that not only was her work appreciated and used by a wide range of things, but also long enough to be accredited the invention and appreciated for bringing it to the world. It was interesting to see the ideas she was privy to that ultimately led to her putting them together in this way.

The other great thing about the book is that "spread spectrum radio" had two inventors and it may not equally go into both, but Antheil wasn't exactly neglected here. His progress through life was also told. I particularly loved the way he was approached about meeting her and his response to his friends. It was really cute.

Altogether, this is a must read for women in science, and should count for Read Harder's task 13, Read a nonfiction about technology. It wasn't my pick for that but I came across it and am glad I gave it a listen. It was read by Bernadette Dunne, who did a beautiful job with it.

It took me almost 2 years to read this, but that was by design. I would read about 10 pages a week and just study and try to absorb all I could from it. What a fantastic book....this major work of history takes the reader from the very beginnings of the journey of the theoretical insight of the people who first conceived of splitting the atom all the way through design, experiments, more design, tests, fabrication, more tests, Trinity (which is by far the most readable and intense part of the book), and ultimately the decision and action of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It even covers the political fall out and lead in to the Cold War with Russia through the ultimate path to the hydrogen bomb as well. This book leaves out nothing....it covers the horror that the Japanese experienced on August 6th and 9th, 1945....it delves into the feelings these brilliant men and women experienced before, during, and after those fateful events....it explains where the brainchildren of this concept came from and the political troubles they faced in Europe on their way to Los Alamos, Washington (state), and Oak Ridge. The most hair-raising part, as I mentioned, was Trinity, the first atomic explosion test in New Mexico. Rhodes brilliantly portrays the people and events as it led up to that test and his descriptions of that test are just mind blowing. History buffs....if you also like long books, this is a must read.

I finally abandoned this after 200 pages. I NEVER do that, but I'm too old now to waste my life on things I'm not interested in. At least for the 200 pages I read there was precious little about the making of the hydrogen bomb and skimming the rest gave little hope. If you were interested in the espionage behind the atomic programs you might like this book, however I found the narrative so dull I simply could not ever connect with it; who stole this, who met whom on what day, simply tedious. For what it is worth it is exhaustively (literally) researched and footnoted. It is fairly politically biased as well.

My copy is a signed first edition and it was a gift so it just goes back on the shelf not in the bin.

The lifelong problem: do I abandon this book only partially read? My compulsive nature RARELY lets me do this, and this was a gift, and inscribed. I'll probably slog on as I read other things on top of it. It really is not a very good book, not what the title purports and just dull and overwritten with too much journalistic detail and not enough narrative.