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Publication
Description
Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic- resistant bacteria in the world. Frantic, Steffanie combed through research old and new and came across phage therapy: the idea that the right virus, aka "the perfect predator," can kill even the most lethal bacteria. Phage treatment had fallen out of favor almost 100 years ago, after antibiotic use went mainstream. Now, with time running out, Steffanie appealed to phage researchers all over the world for help. She found allies at the FDA, researchers from Texas A&M, and a clandestine Navy biomedical center --and together they resurrected a forgotten cure. A nail-biting medical mystery, The Perfect Predator is a story of love and survival against all odds, and the (re)discovery of a powerful new weapon in the global superbug crisis.… (more)
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User reviews
- attributed to Louis Pasteur
Perfect Predator is a page-turning, true-life medical thriller. At times I felt like I was reading a Michael Crichton novel. The science is fascinating and scary. Superbugs - bacteria resistant to all existing
Just as compelling as the science in this story is the emotional journey that Steff and Tom went through during the several months Tom was in the hospital. There is a lot of detail about how the family coped during the difficult months when Tom was very sick. The section describing his months of recovery is short in comparison, and I would have enjoyed learning more about that. One thing that struck me was how once the ordeal was over the couple was able to compare notes about the experience.
"Every medical case is lived twice: once in the wards and once in the memory," wrote Siddhartha Mkherjee, physician and author, paraphrasing the writer Viet Thanh Nguyen. For a couple or a family, every medical case is lived twice more: alone and together. Each of us had our own version of the illness experience as it affected us individually. Our shared version as a family was a patchwork of pieces that came together more slowly with time and conversations. It was another kind of healing."
I'm sure anyone who has been through a medical catastrophe with a loved one can relate.
Because of the success of Tom's case, five other patients were successfully treated with phage therapy by the time the book was published. Also, thanks to generous funding, Tom and Steff have launched a phage center research center. While there is now a glimmer of hope, much research needs to be done before an there is an answer to the dangers of antibiotic resistance. It starts with ending the indiscriminate use of antibiotics.
The author's husband suffered a medical crisis while they were on vacation in Egypt, which escalated rapidly with
Trigger warning for anyone who has gone through a family medical crisis; this was a really rough ride.