Publishers Weekly
09/23/2024
In this robust study, journalist Zeldovich (The Other Dark Matter) explores the medical promise of bacteriophages, “a special type of virus that preys on bacteria.” She explains that relying on antibiotics to fight bacterial infections has led to the evolution of “superbugs” impervious to the drugs. Phages can succeed where antibiotics fail, according to Zeldovich, because they evolve alongside the bacteria they destroy and only target one type of bacteria, meaning that phages that kill salmonella, for instance, won’t harm gut bacteria that help humans digest food. Highlighting remarkable success stories, Zeldovich tells how in 2023, Russian cinematographer Andrey Zvyaginstev, who was suffering from an infection in his lungs that prevented doctors from giving him a life-saving lung transplant, received a phage infusion that so thoroughly beat the infection, his lungs healed and he no longer needed the transplant. Zeldovich makes a strong case that medical professionals are underutilizing phages, and she provides fascinating historical background on why they’ve been overlooked, describing how phage therapies’ popularity in the Soviet Union, where they could be purchased over the counter at pharmacies, led Western doctors to view them with suspicion. Though this covers much of the same ground as Tom Ireland’s The Good Virus, it’s nonetheless a strong overview of phage treatments’ history and benefits. Agent: Luba Ostashevsky, Pande Literary. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"The Living Medicine is a page-turning story that chronicles how scientific progress challenges orthodoxy. Written with evidence and with charisma, this book reads like Malcolm Gladwell at his best, the suspense never stops, but neither does science, every fact and theory are documented in refereed journals. Zeldovich doesn’t skimp on the science – she doesn’t need to because she has that rare talent for clarifying complicated topics without dumbing them down. What makes this book a gift to humanity is that Zeldovich uncovered something at the intersection of history and science that you need to know. Read this book and you’ll see the future of medical treatment." -Ransom Stephens, author of The Left Brain Speaks, the Right Brain Laughs
“Intriguing, complex and constantly surprising, The Living Medicine, is a combination detective story and history lesson about one of the most important issues facing medicine around the world: what the hell do we do when antibiotics stop working? Zeldovich is a smart, lively writer who is unafraid of exploring messy worlds and inconvenient public health truths, so she’s the perfect international guide through this resonant saga.”
Stephen Fried, New York Times best-selling author of RUSH and Bitter Pills, co-author of A Common Struggle and Profiles in Mental Health Courage.
"The Living Medicine is one of those remarkable stories in the history of science, full of insights into the mysteries of disease, determined researchers, and genuinely surprising results. Not only does Lina Zeldovich tell it beautifully but she imbues it with that rarest of qualities, the shimmer and promise of hope." - Deborah Blum, Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
“If you were rapt by The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, you will be entranced by The Living Medicine, which weaves medical history, science and story-telling into an unputdownable book. It is an incredible honor for me and my husband Tom to be included in its pages.” -Steffanie Strathdee, PhD, author of The Perfect Predator: A Scientist's Race to Save Her Husband From a Deadly Superbug
"Bacteriophage therapy is an artifact and a wonder, a century-old cure obscured for decades by political conflict and transnational suspicion. Lina Zeldovich is uniquely equipped to unpack its history. Her accounts of scientific discoveries rescued from bureaucracy and repression, and desperate illnesses quelled by near-miraculous interventions, affirm that great ideas will always, somehow, attain the spotlight they deserve." — Maryn McKenna, author of Big Chicken, Superbug, and Beating Back the Devil
"Deeply researched and wildly engaging—this is science writing at its best. The Living Medicine is a brilliant examination of an urgent topic that affects us all. Zeldovich makes the history and development of bacteriophages as antibiotic alternatives come to life. It's as fascinating as it is enraging—I couldn’t believe America hadn’t long since implemented a treatment other countries have been using for decades." –Olivia Campbell, New York Times bestselling author of Women in White Coats and Sisters in Science.
"In a well-written book that ranges widely through scientific history, marked by episodes of suppression on the part of both the Soviet authorities and the American medical and pharmaceutical establishments, Zeldovich makes a convincing case for phages helping us all in the future. A capably told microbiological detective story, with the promise of magic bullets to come." - Kirkus
"[A] robust study...Zeldovich makes a strong case that medical professionals are underutilizing phages, and she provides fascinating historical background on why they’ve been overlooked." - Publishers Weekly
Kirkus Reviews
2024-08-30
A bracing look through the murky depths at “phages,” viruses used to battle bacteria in treating illness.
Science writer Zeldovich grew up in the former Soviet Union, reading scientific articles “not as stories but as puzzles, from which occasionally—if I managed to figure out enough words to form a sentence—I could deduce some meaning.” One word she knew from experience was the Russian word fordysentery, which, years afterward, pointed her to the possibilities of “biological entities…[that] have been feeding on bacteria for eons, so they are better equipped than our pharmaceutical industry to keep up with bacterial evolution.” Given CDC statistics that 1 in 7 Americans suffers from some foodborne illness each year, and given that many bacteria are now resistant to or even immune from treatment with conventional antibiotics, the prima facie case for using these specialized bacteria is strong indeed. Yet, as Zeldovich discovers, making phages part of the American pharmacopoeia is easier said than done: In Europe and the United States they’re interdicted, for creating phages means manipulating the stuff that otherwise winds up in sewage treatment plants. Still, it’s fascinating to learn of free-floating bacteria in the Ganges River (which one suspects would be an undesirable place to take a swim) that in untreated water “dissolved cholera vibrions”; just so, it’s sobering to hear that the potentially deadly MRSA bacteria, so common in American hospitals, can be killed by viruses in short order thanks to advances made in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. In a well-written book that ranges widely through scientific history, marked by episodes of suppression on the part of both the Soviet authorities and the American medical and pharmaceutical establishments, Zeldovich makes a convincing case for phages helping us all in the future.
A capably told microbiological detective story, with the promise of magic bullets to come.
