
America is one killer organism away from a living nightmare that threatens all we hold dear.... A deadly cloud of powdered anthrax spores settles unnoticed over a crowded football stadium.... A school cafeteria lunch is infected with a drug-resistant strain of E. coli.... Thousands in a bustling shopping mall inhale a lethal mist of smallpox, turning each individual into a highly infectious agent of suffering and death.... Dr. Michael Osterholm knows all too well the horrifying scenarios he describes. In this eye-opening account, the nation’s leading expert on bioterrorism sounds a wake-up call to the terrifying threat of biological attack—and America’s startling lack of preparedness. He demonstrates the havoc these silent killers can wreak, exposes the startling ease with which they can be deployed, and asks probing questions about America’s ability to respond to such attacks. Are most doctors and emergency rooms able to diagnose correctly and treat anthrax, smallpox, and other potential tools in the bioterrorist’s arsenal? Is the government developing the appropriate vaccines and treatments? The answers are here in riveting detail—what America has and hasn’t done to prevent the coming bioterrorist catastrophe. Impeccably researched, grippingly told, Living Terrors presents the unsettling truth about the magnitude of the threat. And more important, it presents the ultimate insider’s prescription for what we must do as a nation to secure our freedom, our future, our lives.
Author

Michael Thomas Osterholm (born March 10, 1953) is an American epidemiologist, regents professor, and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Osterholm graduated from Luther College in 1975 with a B.A. in biology and political science. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in environmental health and his M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of Minnesota. Osterholm has received honorary doctorates from Luther College and Des Moines University, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His other honors include the Pumphandle Award from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists; the Charles C. Shepard Science Award from the CDC; the Harvey W. Wiley Medal from the Food and Drug Administration; the Squibb Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America; Distinguished University Teaching Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota; and the Wade Hampton Frost Leadership Award, American Public Health Association. He has also received six major research awards from the National Institutes of Health and the CDC.