Rating: 
Summary: A compilation of stories with mistakes
Review: Despite the attention-grabbing subtitle, "The killer strain: anthrax and a government exposed," this book is no more than a compilation of newspaper-type stories with the same sorts of howlers that one expects in The Daily Bugle. There is certainly nothing new here. But how could there be anything new on a such a thoroughly reported topic? There is, however, fairly good organization, reasonable thoroughness, and at least an attempt at objectivity. I appreciated the book because it answered, for me, two questions that have nagged me: (1) Did CDC officials really fail to do their job properly or were they, like Ms Lundgren and Ms Nguyen, just exceptionally unlucky, and (2) Is Hatfill justifiably a "person of interest" or is he just a scapegoat for investigators who have failed to find the real culprit? As for CDC culpability, Marilyn Thompson's leisurely account seems to confirm what I had suspected from less complete accounts in the newspapers: the CDC wasn't just unlucky, the CDC failed to do what the CDC does best, to thoroughly investigate the factors that have led to sickness or death and, by impartially analyzing those factors, to provide the public with recommendations that can be used to reduce future sickness and death from the same cause. What the CDC investigators apparently failed to do in this case was to thoroughly examine the operations of the mail handling facilities early on in the investigation. Had they seen the sorting machines in action they would have realized that these things can aerosolize bowling balls. Instead, they evidently remained convinced that anthrax in a sealed letter would remain in the letter through the sorting process. And if they had seen how the sorting machines were cleaned with compressed air, they would have seen that their concept of "no re-aerosolization of anthrax spores" was inapplicable in the automated mail handling environment. The other issue of interest to me was the evidence against Hatfill. I couldn't tell from what I have read in the papers how strong it is. Now, from Thompson's book, I can see that it is only circumstantial, yet compelling. (It is certainly clear that Thompson believes Hatfill was the perpetrator.) I can understand why the FBI has had Hatfill under surveillance for two years. (On the other hand, the FBI seemed equally justified in their suspicion that Richard Jewell was the Olympic Park bomber and look how that case turned out.) What's wrong with "The Killer Strain"? It's too long for one thing. Thompson goes on at length about a few characters, describing in more detail than I care for aspects of their home decor and personal grooming. More important are the factual errors which are so egregious as to make the entire text suspect. One Amazon customer reviewer already pointed out that Thompson has Trent Lott as a representative from Louisiana. My favorite is on p. 184 where she refers to the "notorious Tuskegee syphilis study...performed...in Macon County, Georgia. The Tuskegee study was performed in Tuskegee, for heaven's sake! Tuskegee is in Alabama. Would we tolerate a historian who wrote that Lincoln was buried in Grant's tomb? In summary, Thompson has produced a "newspaper quality" account of the anthrax attacks that will probably be of interest to people who slept through the winter of 2001-2002. For this she deserves three stars. But there's nothing new in the account and the factual errors numerous and substantive enough that three stars is all she deserves.
Rating:
Summary: A compilation of stories with mistakes
Review: Disappointing and superficial. Beside the errors (Thompson
twice refers to Trent Lott as being from Louisiana, not Mississippi; and introduces, out of the blue, someone named "Hatch", presumably Orrin), she really reveals nothing new. For instance, it was widely known in gossip circles that the FBI Executive heading the initial anthrax probe in Florida had just purchased a home in suburban Virginia with his mistress, potentially distracting and disrupting the FBI probe , but Thompson missed this.
Rating:
Summary: Superficial
Review: Disappointing and superficial. Beside the errors (Thompson
twice refers to Trent Lott as being from Louisiana, not Mississippi; and introduces, out of the blue, someone named "Hatch", presumably Orrin), she really reveals nothing new. For instance, it was widely known in gossip circles that the FBI Executive heading the initial anthrax probe in Florida had just purchased a home in suburban Virginia with his mistress, potentially distracting and disrupting the FBI probe , but Thompson missed this.
Rating: 
Summary: enthralling
Review: enthralling,
I wrote this review which you now have posted under the author's name.
This book is totally engrossing from the first page to the last. It manages to take a story about a real-life incident (the anthrax letters of 2001) and spin it into a fascinating yarn that has shades of fiction. The characters are richly drawn -- Leroy Richmond, the devoted postal worker who contracts anthrax when his boss asks him to leave his work station and clean up some rubbish behind the anthrax-contaminated Machine 17; John Ezzell, the scientist who frets during sleepless nights about how to protect the public from this menace; Jeff Koplan, the dedicated bureaucrat who ends up being the Bush administration's fall guy. Despite its title, which is a play on words about anthrax exposure, Thompson tries to engage the reader and succeeds in spinning a story that informs, enrages and leaves lingering questions about our government's ability to deal with acts of orchestrated terror. Can't put it down reading.
Rating:
Summary: enthralling
Review: enthralling,
I wrote this review which you now have posted under the author's name.
This book is totally engrossing from the first page to the last. It manages to take a story about a real-life incident (the anthrax letters of 2001) and spin it into a fascinating yarn that has shades of fiction. The characters are richly drawn -- Leroy Richmond, the devoted postal worker who contracts anthrax when his boss asks him to leave his work station and clean up some rubbish behind the anthrax-contaminated Machine 17; John Ezzell, the scientist who frets during sleepless nights about how to protect the public from this menace; Jeff Koplan, the dedicated bureaucrat who ends up being the Bush administration's fall guy. Despite its title, which is a play on words about anthrax exposure, Thompson tries to engage the reader and succeeds in spinning a story that informs, enrages and leaves lingering questions about our government's ability to deal with acts of orchestrated terror. Can't put it down reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Expect a Synopsis --Not an Expose
Review: I found this book so disappointing that I feel compelled to write a brief review. While Ms. Thompson clearly did her homework, she tells us nothing new in this book. It is simply a cogent narrative of the events surrounding the anthrax letters. There is no investigative journalism in the sense that nothing previously unknown is revealed, nothing is uncovered, no "government [is] exposed." There is the usual journalistic play on the ordeal of one survivor and the invasive note of titillation over the dead. I was uncomfortable with the tone. After all, several people died --were maliciously murdered -- and it was a tragedy; it doesn't need inflaming. But heat is not light, and mistakes and errors in judgment are not the big story. The big story is: what in the world happened here? Where specifically did the anthrax come from? Do we know? If not, why not? Who could have perpetrated these crimes? Who in the government knows what? Are the investigators incompetent or are there darker forces at play? The Ames strain came from our programs; how did it get into deadly hands? With all the experts--scientists and criminologists-- involved, do we truly know nothing much to date? These people have devoted their lives to tracking things down, to pinning down facts. You get my point.
This is portrayed as one kind of book, and it is really something else and something much less interesting. Sorry. The books that will take us deeper into this story are yet to be written. We ought to be clamoring for them. The anthrax murders were an urgent and ominous series of events. And the silence is, well, the silence is suspect. Who's in charge here? Where are Bush's vaunted leadership skills? Where do things stand now? Are we safe?
Rating:
Summary: Quick summary of the attacks
Review: I read this book after hearing the author interviewed on NPR. While the author evidently knows the subject matter well, the book reads as if it were written to be read aloud rather than just read. Confusingly, it's not really written chronologically, either. But it's pretty good anyway, and offers an excellent, though brief, summary of the events of fall 2001 without dwelling overly long on subjects (like September 11) that we're all quite familiar with. The author also spends some time reviewing the "person of interest", Stephen J. Hatfield, and his background. It's a short read (I read it cover to cover in about a day), but it's worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Vivid in-depth reporting on the anthrax attack
Review: Marilyn Thompson is a crackerjack investigative reporter for the Washington Post. So it's no surprise that she's turned out an excellent book on the anthrax attack that followed on the heels of 9/11. Her book is based on dozens of interviews and reams of documentation. It's very detailed, remarkably clear, and extremely informative. Reading it, you would think that the author had been there with a videocamera to record each event as it unfolded. A few eye-openers from the book: Prior to 1972, the U.S. government made (and eventually destroyed) 220 lbs. of weapons-grade anthrax. If dispersed throughout a big city, that's enough to cause 250,000 infections and perhaps 200,000 deaths. The Soviets made (and hopefully destroyed) much more. The contrast between how authorities at all levels dealt with the contamination of the Senate Office Building and the threat to Senators and their staffers, compared to postal facilities and postal workers could not be more striking. This was not simply the case of one oversight or mistake, but of a system-wide reluctance to conceive of a significant risk to postal workers (two of whom died) or to contemplate closing down potentially contaminated processing facilities. As has been shown in similar situations, such as the first appearance of West Nile Virus, so many government agencies get involved that any kind of coherent response seems to take far too long, if it comes together at all. Despite years of warnings, laboratories, hospitals, doctors, police plus other agencies and facilities were "uniformly unprepared." Early on, the government blocked the Centers for Disease Control from releasing information, leading to a major credibility gap. The CDC's performance was far from ideal. Despite or perhaps because of their expertise, they remained convinced that there could be no risk to postal workers, and clung to the standard (and usually sensible) medical reluctance not to prescribe antibiotics far too long, especially in the case of potentially exposed postal workers. As Thompson points out, we now are painfully aware that bioterrorism is a reality. Anyone who is interested in the details of how the anthrax attacks unfolded, or who wants to be better prepared the next time bioterrorists strike, should read _The Killer Strain_. Robert Adler, author of _Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation_ (John Wiley & Sons, September 2002).
Rating:
Summary: A true masterpiece of nonfiction novels
Review: Simply put, THE KILLER STRAIN, stunningly written by journalist Marilyn W. Thompson, is one of the best nonfiction novels of its time. It makes the true events of the [chemical substances] attacks a real suspense thriller that keeps the reader interested and never lets them go. The stories of the survivors are heartfelt and inspiring, and this book is a stunning tribute to the hardships they faced in late 2001. ...
Rating:
Summary: The Killer Strain : Anthrax and a Medicine Exposed
Review: The Killer Strain: Anthrax and the Exposed Medicine I am peruvian medical , and for some years , have been investigating anthrax in Peru, reason why caused to much interest for me the appearance of the book: The Killer Strain.
The book that narrates the events related to the first outbreak of bioterrorismo in the U.S.A., submerges to us in the interior of the scientific work during the epidemic , show some more than appears in the scientific journals . Although the author certainly has obtained much related information to this epidemic, probably, the lack of a biomedica formation, has taken it to an incomplete vision of the epidemic of anthrax. The book shows some mistakes that reflect the nonmedica formation of the author, as a sample : in the figures of the book, call as symptoms to the injuries of the skin,instead of use signs. Would had been ideal that some medical professional help in revising or writing the book.
Maybe , the great problem in analyzing this epidemic is that in the world exist few experts in anthrax As the same author recognizes in her book, many doctors what participated in the epidemic , never has been sight a case of anthrax. (1) For that reason many mistakes that exist during the epidemic maybe has been unnoticed. Some of these faults in the epidemic, can be justified by the low degree of scientific knowledge with respect to this pathology, maybe for example : not to diagnose inhalational anthrax.
Inhalation anthrax is the main clinical form in the bioterrorism scope given its high mortality, however early diagnosis (a time when treatment can be effective),(2) is rather difficult to achieve In their initial stage symptoms of inhalation anthrax are very similar to influenza .
Although the cutaneous form has low mortality rates and is thus, considered as less important in a bioterrorist attack, its diagnosis may serve as an epidemiological alerta and lead, indirectly, to the early search for possible inhalation anthrax cases. These difficulties in early recognition were observed in the recent bioterrorism event with anthrax in the United States. In the bioterrorism- related outbreak of anthrax , in october 2001, the first cases were not for inhalation, but cutaneos , the detection of these cases would likely iniate the epidemiological investigation more precociously and maybe diminished even more the mortality in this outbreak. Because of this, it is necessary for physicians to learn to recognize cutaneous anthrax at its early stage.
Contrary to what occurs with the inhalation form, cutaneous anthrax there are well defined clinical characteristics and is relatively easy to diagnose clinically, to however, the early stage of cutaneous anthrax often remains undiagnosed, probably due to many reasons: a) It is to rare pathology; b) The this physician associates pathology mainly with to annoys stage necrotic to ulcer and; c) Absence of pain in the cutaneous injury makes the patient recognize the cutaneous injury annoys and delay seeking medical attention clinical Emphasis on early recognition of cutaneous anthrax is highly used in anthrax endemic area in peruvians andens, as part of the traditional medicine knowledge developed by these communities due to the absence of physicians and it could be useful to the field of bioterrorism. In Peru, farmers emphasize the clinical recognition of cutaneous anthrax in an early stage and call it "waytacha" (A quechua term that means bad flower) (3).
In this outbreak , although is certain were errors of the government and of institutions, there were also medical mistakes, that are necessary to recognize them so that they do not repeat in the future. The most critical component for bioterrorism outbreak detection is the doctor ( 4 ), and the great medical mistake of this epidemic was not undiagnose anthrax by inhalation but not to diagnose the cases of cutaneous anthrax, the detection of these cases would also , of to be certain the relation between hijjackers and anthrax ( 5 ), also initiate the investigation related to hijjackers and maybe, help to prevent the tragedy of September 11.
This epidemic more than show a exposed government , show to an exposed medicine, exposed to anthrax , a disease that does not even manage to know nor to control. David Salinas Flores REFERENCES
1. Thompson. The Killer strain. Anthrax and a Government exposed. Harper Collins Publishers.2003. pg. 72-73 2. Mc Carthy M. Early and aggressive treatment saves US antrax victims. Lancet. 2001 ; 358 : 1703 3. Salinas D. Diagnóstico y Tratamiento del Antrax: Medicina Tradicional vs Medicina CientÃfica. Revista Peruana de Enfermedades Infecciosas y Tropicales. 2001;1:157-164 4. Ashford D, Kaiser R, bales, M. et al Planning against biological terrorism.: Lessons from Outbreak investigations. Emerg Infect Dis . 2003 .9 :515 5. Report linking anthrax and hijackers is investigated. New York Times. 23 marzo 2002
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