Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service

摘要

As a former Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 1980s, I was pleased to learn of a new book on the EIS program, its history, and some of the successful epidemic investigations over the past decades. I also wanted to learn how Pendergrast had portrayed the EIS, since he was never in the organization and had not himself lived through any of the epidemic investigations as a “disease detective.” Of course, this text is not the only book on the history of the EIS ( 1, 2). However, it is perhaps the most informative of them to read, and I was pleased to find that Pendergrast showed a solid understanding of the program and its history. The author’s main purpose is to describe the history of the EIS program and to provide “behind the scenes” information on a variety of disease outbreaks—consistent with the title of the book. Although not apparently trained in medicine or in epidemiology, the author nonetheless presents the facts surrounding various disease outbreaks in a compelling manner with a very easy-to-read style.