The Grippe

Flu: The Story of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It - Gina Kolata

The author has been on the science and medicine beat for the New York Times since the year 2000. She wrote this book in 2001. 

After a brief examination of the 1918 flu pandemic in the US, Kolata introduces readers to the subsequent research conducted concerning the various strains of flu. She covers the so-called Spanish flu of 1918, the swine flu of 1976, and the avian flu of 1997. Her examination of the swine flu mass vaccination debacle during the Ford administration in 1976 was especially informative about the collision of scientists that pushed the panic button, leaders driven by political expediency, and irresponsible reporters in the mass media.

Lending a travel narrative aspect to the book, she spends much space telling about the two expeditions to exhume frozen flu victims in order to harvest samples of the 1918 virus. Generally, I skimmed a great deal on the human interest side, with copious profiles of researchers. I mean, the stories of researchers butting heads with each other over trivial stuff may interest the general thinking reader – in a grim, malicious pleasure kind of way. Me, I'm a tedious high-minded kind of guy, easily brought down by stories of researchers way more intelligent than me who still bellyache and squabble like brats over credit, travel, awards, reputation, prestige, lab space, start-up funds, and needing people to be always telling them how wonderful they are. Ugh, human interest, gimme a break. 

Readers with an interest in infectious diseases will learn much about the various methods of research and prophylaxis to identify and deal with the various pandemics that have threatened us in the last century. She also goes over the history of the creation of various vaccines.

I recommend this book not only for the sake of historical memory, well researched and told, but also to better understand and appreciate current scientific efforts that have been made in our ongoing pandemic. Recall in less than a month we had the genomic sequence of the virus and two vaccines in under a year.