2007 JESSICA SNYDER SACHS — Good Germs, Bad Germs: Health and Survival in a Bacterial World by Jessica Snyder Sachs, winner of the 2005 book award, has been published by Hill and Wang and is available in bookstores. Her argument is that “antibiotic resistance now ranks among the gravest medical problems of modern times”.
“Public sanitation and antibiotic drugs have brought about historic increases in the human life span; they have also unintentionally produced new health crises by disrupting the intimate, age-old balance between humans and the microorganisms that inhabit our bodies and our environment. As a result, antibiotic resistance now ranks among the gravest medical problems of modern times. Good Germs, Bad Germs addresses not only this issue but also what has become known as the hygiene hypothesis – an argument that links the over-sanitation of modern life to now-epidemic increases in immune and other disorders.