Hot Zone??

[Ian A. York]

In article <jordan-0902950946170001 at mac-burl-11.dfci.harvard.edu> jordan at mbcrr.harvard.edu (Rob Jordan) writes:
[re The Hot Zone]
>
>I agree with Ken. There may have been some sensationalization in the
>description of the characters and situations but for the most part I did
>not find any glaring errors in the scientific content. The book was very
>entertaining even to someone who works with viruses for a living.

I'll take that a step further.  What I've heard several times is a
statement something like this:  "Oh, the Hot Zone is oversensationalized
and not very accurate, but you should read The Coming Plague [Laurie
Garrett] - it's much more accurate and journalistic." 

	Well, I read both.  I didn't really find any problems with THZ -
sure, it was sensational, but it wasn't sensationalized.  I don't work on
filoviruses, so I don't know how exact that part was; as far as I could
see there were no glaring errors.
	TCP was good too - much more ambitious, and the theme was more 
interesting as far as I was concerned - placing things like Ebola and 
toxic shock syndrome in a global context; and generally the science was 
pretty accurate.  BUT.  In just about every basic science part I would be 
sort of skimming through, not really reading too closely - " yup, yup, 
uh-huh, uh-huh - WHAT?"  - there would be a little glitch, never blatant, 
never wrecking the sense - but not quite right.  (Sorry, it's been two 
months since I read it and I can't come up with examples right now.)  One 
or two would not have worried me, but after a while I started to wonder: 
if this is a little bit off on things I know for sure, what about the 
things I don't know?  What's a little bit off on them?

Ian
-- 
Ian York   (york at mbcrr.harvard.edu)
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney St., Boston MA 02115
Phone (617)-632-4328     Fax  (617)-632-2627