Plague Time: The New Germ Theory of Disease

by Paul Ewald

According to conventional wisdom, our genes and lifestyles are the most important causes of the most deadly ailments of our time. Conventional wisdom may be wrong. In this controversial book, the eminent biologist Paul W. Ewald offers some startling

-Germs appear to be at the root of heart disease, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, many forms of cancer, and other chronic diseases.
-The greatest threats to our health come not from sensational killers such as Ebola, West Nile virus, and super-virulent strains of influenza, but from agents that are already here causing long-term infections, which eventually lead to debilitation and death.
-The medical establishment has largely ignored the evidence that implicates these germs, to the detriment of our public health.
-New evolutionary theories are available, which explain how germs function and offer opportunities for controlling these modern plagues — if we are willing to listen to them.

Plague Time is an eye-opening exploration of the revolutionary new understanding of disease that may set the course of medical research for the twenty-first century.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Health, Medicine, Biology, Disease, Anthropology

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2002

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look at whether diseases that we consider to be "chronic" or "lifetyle" related may not actually be caused by viruses. No, it's not a look at whether, it's an assertion that viruses ARE at the root of many diseases that we don't now consider communicable.

Probably could have been squeezed into a New Yorker article, but worth a read.

[Crosby · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, Dr. Ewald is a college professor and researcher who has become well known for his ideas relating natural selection and evolution to infectious diseases in humans. Some of the more noted medical schools in the country are incorporating his ideas into their training of physicians. The basic theme of his book is that some of the most common and dangerous diseases in humans might have an infectious disease component. Most people including many physicians and researchers do not consider heart attacks, autoimmune diseases, cancer, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, etc to be related in any way to microorganisms. Ewald describes how the same thing was thought in the not too distant past about ulcers, cervical cancer, infertility, liver cancer, etc. Ewald presents a historical perspective of the latter diseases and shows how researchers that "thought outside of the box" were able to prove that infectious organisms were in fact responsible. He then discusses recent findings that are providing hints that we may still have some big surprises in store for the future of many diseases thought to be free of microbial influence. For example, he speculates what it will mean if we find that the inflammation and atherosclerosis that often precedes heart attacks has a microbial cause.He cites studies that indicate that the bacterium that causes one form of "walking pneumonia", Chlamydia pneumoniae, is somehow involved. He states that if these findings are true, "atherosclerosis would be enough to make C. pneumoniae rank among the most deadly human pathogens of all times". Another intriguing example, among many, is his discussion of an infectious cause for breast cancer. When he is discussing the role of microbes in such human afflictions, the book is engrossing. On the other hand there are topics of discussion that are peripheral to his theme that would be better edited out. For example the extensive discussion of the evidence for HIV being introduced into humans through vaccine production could have been edited and still made the point. Likewise, the section on biological warfare/terrorism could have either been deleted altogether or at least tied into the overall theme a little more smoothly. Overall, this book discusses an idea that is, as Scientific American noted, "Provocative....if correct, this theory will change the course of medicine."

[Mary Frances · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I'd dismiss this because the guy has gotten so little traction for his ideas except for a few things: having had inflammation problems affecting my health since childhood, the infection idea makes sense to me viscerallly; discoveries about ulcers, cervical cancer and heart disease beg for more research into infectious agents; we know the power of paradigms to affect what scientists sometimes see-what they expect to see rather than what is there; modern US medicine has failed miserable to heal based on non-invasive, cause-related protocols. Let's give everyone statins, which make money and MIGHT help, rather than looking at things a new way and finding different answers. So I'm pretty convinced this author is on to something. But then, why haven't we seen more action on this theory????

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twenty years old is pretty old for any book about medicine, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend Plague Time unless it was just one of several books you were reading on the subject. But a lot of it was interesting.

What if, instead of being the fault of genetics, lifestyle, and bad luck, diseases such as atherosclerosis, Alzheimers, and schizophrenia were caused by infectious germs? (Great example: peptic ulcers, which used to be blamed on stress and spicy food, are caused by h.pylori bacteria and can easily be treated with antibiotics.) Author Paul Ewald makes a good case for implicating c.pneumoniae in both heart and lung diseases. Chapter 8 (Our Vulnerable Hearts and Minds) was so interesting that I spent several hours researching c. pneumoniae and atherosclerosis to see what has been discovered in the past 20 years since this book was written.

Another interesting topic discussed is how germs that are spread quickly and easily tend to become more virulent and deadly and specifically discussed several STDs, including HIV and HPV, but also apparently the same logic applies to the "common colds." If people were encouraged to stay home and convalesce when they were sick, even with an average rhinovirus or influenza, instead of masking symptoms with Tylenol and going out to share it with coworkers and everyone else they came in contact with, these bothersome viruses would become milder. Wouldn't that be nice? But I had to laugh when I came to the sectioned entitled "Staying Home" (pg 210) "What if people were encouraged to stay home if they or a family member were sick?" Scientists have been saying this for over 20 years! And here we are, finally doing it during the COVID-19 pandemic, because the government is forcing us to.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thematically, very similar to wildlife of our bodies, it didn't have quite that books tendency to blame a rigid scientific orthodoxy for failing to recognise that a few visionaries with very little evidence were correct, but it went part way. Sometimes, it seemed like the author didn't understand evolution, such as when he claimed that even if a gene has an negative effect late in life, it would have been selected out of the gene pool by now, unless the negative effect was recent, without making any attempt to justify this statement, and at other times, he does get carried away by few isolated results and is too dismissive of environmental factors that are known to cause diseases, in order to zoom in on the pathogens as being to blame for most things.
And it may well be true that many diseases have a pathogenic cause that is not yet recognised, but he didn't make his case in my opinion.

[K De · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Ewald's book"Plague Time" is a thoughtful look at how medical science is overlooking the causation of chronic diseases. Rather than look to environmental or genetic causation of chronic disease as well as heart attacks he looks backward to the beginning of medical science of the microscopic biome of bacteria. How does the earliest detection of bacteria that caused diseases that were then treatable. How has the advance of medicine have eclipsed germ theory to other causation of human illness? He takes a evolutionary view of germ theory that would supplant our current understanding to see that evolutionary germ theory can explain some chronic diseases that cannot be understood currently. He is a forward thinker that has looked at the past to explain future avenues of medical research. Well worth reading as to where we might have a greater challenge but one that is amenable to such advanced technologies like CRISPR/CAS 9.

[Hannah Hillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you can get past all the terrible metaphors in the first section, this book may exceed your expectations. Ewald gives a detailed history of the evolution of infectious agents and their causation of disease. I'm not sure he completely convinced me of his theory, as he uses very few examples, the infectious causation of peptic ulcers and possible correlation with atherosclerosis, to defend his hypothesis regarding chronic disease. Nevertheless, I still feel this book demonstrated the gamut of possible discoveries that may be made in modern medicine and ignited my curiosity on the subject. Definitely readable for both people who have previous exposure to virology and those who do not.

[Clivemichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting with a fair amount of repetition and axe grinding.

[Antony]

a great read. I am glad I read it now. in the light of Swine Flu 2009. Otherwise I wouldn't have believed some of it as easily as now. "Throwing "swine flu parties" in an attempt to get immunity against the virus while it is a fairly mild form is not a good idea, doctors say." "Their reasoning is that it is best to be infected before the winter when the virus could become more deadly. " http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/812...

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating hypothesis: what if many of our chronic diseases today are caused by infectious agents? Ewald develops the history of this idea and how it may inform medical practice in the future.

[April Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am an Ewald fan girl lol