Moving Birds Around, at Great Peril

Abstract

Globalization and our changing world link these two otherwise different books. As our species moves across geographies with diverse biota in tow (intentionally and unintentionally), we reshape our world in diverse and unexpected ways. The Fatal Strain, an engrossing narrative, examines how we have, only for now, barely dodged a pandemic of avian flu as the poultry trade expands in ways old and new. Avian Invasions, in textbook manner, looks at some of the ecological and genetic patterns associated with our moving bird species around the globe. The Fatal Strain tells the far more dramatic and compelling story. It reads like a thriller—concerned and even heroic health professionals tracking down suspected cases of poultry-to-people infection, fearing the emergence of human-to-human infections that could quickly change from epidemic to pandemic. These professionals work amid suspicious rural families, incompetent bureaucracies, and defensive governments across Asia. The killer, avian flu, is on the loose, and .. . . Well, it is not fiction, so we learn just how close we were recently to a devastating pandemic.