The scale of biological invasions unsettling our hospitals, water and livestock now dwarfs the whole SARS debacle but gets little respect. Hospital invaders are particularly insidious. One in ten patients will acquire unwanted bacterial, viral or fungal infections when they visit a hospital in Canada and an estimated 8,000 will die from these infections every year.
Drawing on examples from his new book, Pandemonium: Bird Flu, Mad Cow Disease, and Other Biological Plagues of the 21st Century, Andrew Nikiforuk will explain how hospitals have become industrial factories for drug-resistant super bugs and what the average citizen can do about this threat to public health.
Speaker: Andrew Nikiforuk
Andrew Nikiforuk is the author of three previous books, including Saboteurs, which won a Governor General’s Award for non-fiction. His first book, The Fourth Horseman: A Short History of Plagues, Scourges and Emerging Viruses, won critical acclaim in Canada, the United States and Britain. An award-winning journalist, Andrew Nikiforuk has written for Alberta Venture, Walrus, Saturday Night, Avenue, Canadian Business and the Globe & Mail Report on Business Magazine. He and his family have owned land in the Porcupine Hills for nearly 20 years where he is a member of the Livingstone Landowner’s Group.