Laurie Garrett’s Betrayal of Trust (Oxford University Press, £11.99) maps the collapse of the global health system. Frightening stuff, as she plots the real dangers this presents. The outbreak of SARS and the worldwide cooperation it has evoked is exceptional, it seems, given this dissection of the failure to tackle TB or HIV at a global level. Follow it up with The Killers Within (Time Warner, £9.99), the tale of bacteria out of control everywhere after years of overprescribing antibiotics. Authors Michael Shnayerson and Mark Plotkin say we are “peering into an abyss”, and that the microbes might just win.
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