The greatest thing about Laurie Garrett's story is that it doesn't have a shouting headline, doesn't offer "discoveries," "breakthroughs," or "solutions." Her take on the so-called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) may have been possible only because she has editors and publishers who don't require her to shout about breakthroughs. After the second or third wave of major-media announcements that scientists somewhere had discovered the cause of SARS, Garrett lays out all the theories and keeps an open mind. Her book, The Coming Plague, is a chilling account of the global threats of emerging diseases (e.g., HIV/AIDS). Of course we all imagined, with the first reports of SARS, that this might be the first manifestation of a bioterror attack. But bioterror is only one -- and perhaps not even the most terrifying -- channel of vulnerability our complex modern environment leaves open to virulent new diseases we may be largely unprotected from.

(See: http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsmyst26q3192515mar26.story)