Laurie Garrett

Laurie Garrett is a science and health writer for Newsday and the author of the book The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. In the following viewpoint, Garrett argues that the belief held by many American and European health professionals in the 1960s and 1970s that infectious diseases would soon be conquered by antibiotics, vaccines, and other medical advances has proven to be unfounded. Microbes have developed resistance to antibiotics, she points out, while social developments in poor countries, including wars, refugee movements, and growing cities with little infrastructure, have provided new breeding grounds for disease. Furthermore, she contends, global migration and commercial air travel have made it impossible for outbreaks of disease to be confined to one place. The cumulative result of these developments...