"Garrett exposes the underbelly of the world's globalization: If India's economy is prospering, for example, how can there coexist with this new affluence an outbreak of pneumonic plague, a disease long thought to have been relegated to the history books? In Russia, alcoholism, drug addiction, TB, and the effects of such catastrophes as Chernobyl have shortened life expectancy for the average man by a full decade since 1991.

In the United States, we face new "superstrains" of diseases we thought had been wiped out long ago. In addition, global travel has made it nearly impossible to keep what were once considered "third world diseases" out of our country. Has our public health system let us down, and if so, how serious is the danger to our collective health?"--BOOK JACKET.