Reference Reviews

Reference for Students

Pandemics. Edited by David M. Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit, Mich.: Greenhaven Press Thomson*Gale, 2007. 1 vol. 94 p. $29.95. ISBN 10: 0-7377-3603-8; 13: 978-0-7377-3603-8.

Students are perhaps most familiar with one epidemic disease of global proportions, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). They may remember the threat of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) which started in China in this decade. Studying world history, they would learn of the plague in Europe between 1347 and 1351 which killed 20 million there and was then carried to Asia where it killed another 20 million. We now learn that the world is threatened with bird flu, and, in this reference book, obesity. Entries highlighted here include two by George W. Bush, one a press conference and the other, "President Outlines Pandemic Influenza Preparations and Response." Health teachers will find this introduction helpful.