The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu.

• Author: O'Kane, John
• Position: REQUIRED READING - Brief article - Book review

THE MONSTER AT OUR DOOR: THE GLOBAL THREAT OF AVIAN FLU Mike Davis (New York: The New Press, 2005), 224 pages.

In The Monster At Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu, author Mike Davis systematically examines the evolution of influenza A (H5N1), its potential means of transmission and the marriage of political and economic forces that together have thwarted the implementation of serious worldwide measures to prevent its spread.

Davis begins with a refreshingly comprehensible description of the subtle and highly technical differences between strains of the influenza virus, focusing on its more lethal iterations and using historical case studies to ground his research. He makes a persuasive case that the combination of globalization and Western neglect of the threat may have placed humankind in a situation similar to the 1918 influenza pandemic that is estimated to have killed as many as 100 million persons worldwide. Davis calls attention to a frightening reality in which economic interests consistently trump public health concerns.

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