China Syndrome

The SARS outbreak of 2003 terrified millions of people and served as a harbinger of epidemics to come. More recently, outbreaks of a deadly strain of Avian Influenza have also caused alarm, along with the H1N1 Flu. According to history, the world is long overdue for an influenza pandemic, which could easily be as deadly as the 1918 flu that killed at least 50 million people.

Journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld was living in Hong Kong when SARS first appeared, just miles from his home. His real-life scientific thriller China Syndrome takes readers on a whirlwind ride from the bedside of one of the first victims, to cutting-edge labs where researchers race to find a vaccine, to World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva as officials desperately try to determine the number and extent of SARS cases, despite the efforts of the Chinese government to conceal data.

China Syndrome takes us to the front lines of the SARS and Avian Flu outbreaks and explains how globalization, coupled with rampant development, is ushering in a terrifying new chapter in the history of human health.

Karl Taro Greenfeld, the former editor at TIME Asia, is now an editor at large at Sports Illustrated in New York. He is the author of Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan’s Next Generation, and Standard Deviations: Growing Up and Coming Down in the New Asia.

“A compelling writer ... China Syndrome echoes the sort of gritty, breathless thriller pace that Richard Preston employed 10 years ago in The Hot Zone.” — Washington Post