The Chickens Fight Back
Pandemic Panics and Deadly Diseases That Jump from Animals to Humans
- Publisher
- Greystone Books Ltd
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2007
- Category
- General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781553652700
- Publish Date
- Mar 2007
- List Price
- $22.95
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Description
Emerging diseases like mad cow, SARS, and avian flu are for the moment, at least far more prevalent in animals than in humans. Still, the knowledge that measles, TB, and smallpox were at one time emerging” diseases that eventually made a permanent, and quite deadly, jump to humans gives epidemiologists pause. This book examines the various groups of animal diseases, explains what attracts them to the human population from food to sex to living conditions and offers suggestions for keeping them at bay. It also points out that diseases must be looked at from an ecological, cultural, and economic point of view as well as from a biological standpoint. Cooking meat till its well done and slathering on insect repellent for a hike in the woods are effective preventative measures, but as the author notes, it’s more important to fundamentally rethink humankind’s place in the world.
About the author
David Waltner-Toews is a veterinary epidemiologist and university professor emeritus at the University of Guelph. He was founding president of Veterinarians without Borders / Vétérinaires sans Frontières – Canada and a founding member of Communities of Practice for Ecosystem Approaches to Health in Canada. In 2010 the International Association for Ecology and Health presented him with the inaugural award for contributions to ecosystem approaches to health, and in 2019 he received an award from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association recognizing “veterinarians who have exhibited exceptional acts of valour and commitment in the face of adversity to service the community.”
Besides being an author of many scholarly books and articles, he has published six books of poetry, a collection of recipes and dramatic monologues, a collection of short stories, two novels and various books of popular science including On Pandemics: Deadly Diseases from Bubonic Plague to Coronavirus; The Origin of Feces: What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology and a Sustainable Society; Eat the Beetles: An Exploration into our Conflicted Relationship with Insects and Food, Sex and Salmonella: Why Our Food Is Making Us Sick. His nonfiction books have won awards in the US and Canada, and have been published in Japanese, French, Chinese and Arabic.
Other titles by
New & Selected Poems of David Waltner-Toews
A Conspiracy of Chickens
On Pandemics
Deadly Diseases from Bubonic Plague to Coronavirus
Eat the Beetles!
An Exploration into Our Conflicted Relationship with Insects
The Origin of Feces
What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology, and a Sustainable Society
Fear of Landing
The Chickens Fight Back
Pandemic Panics and Deadly Diseases that Jump From Animals to Humans - See more
Food, Sex and Salmonella
Why Our Food Is Making Us Sick
The Fat Lady Struck Dumb
