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WORK TITLE: The Health of Nations
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.karenbartlett.co.uk/
CITY: London, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2013072852
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Bartlett, Karen
Located: London, England
Field of activity: Journalism
Human rights
Affiliation: Charter 88 (Organization)
BBC Radio
Profession or occupation:
Journalist
Found in: After Auschwitz, 2013: t.p. (Karen Bartlett) p. 3 of dust
jacket (writer and journalist based in London. Has
presented and produced for BBC Radio. Youngest director
of democratic reform and human rights campaign group
Charter88)
Associated language:
eng
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PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, journalist, broadcaster, radio producer, documentary filmmaker, and biographer. BBC Radio, presenter and producer. Charter88 (a human rights campaign group), director; worked for the Fabian Society.
WRITINGS
Contributor to newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Times (London, England), Guardian (London, England), Newsweek, New Statesman, Times (London, England), and Wired. Newcastle Journal, former columnist.
SIDELIGHTS
Karen Bartlett is a London-based writer and journalist who writes for many of the world’s most prominent newspapers and magazines, including the London Guardian, Newsweek, the London Times, New Statesman, and Wired. She has been a correspondent in Africa, India, and the United States, noted a writer on the Macmillan Website. She has been a presenter and a producer for BBC radio. As a documentary filmmaker, she has produce films on subjects such as architect Frank Gehry, the “Palm Dog” alternative film award, and the science of thrillseeking, noted a writer on the Karen Bartlett Website. Bartlett has also worked for the Fabian Society and for the human rights group Charter88.
In The Health of Nations: The Campaign to End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases, Bartlett explores the long-term efforts of governments, health organizations, physicians, and others in ridding the world of contagious diseases. Bartlett “takes readers on an epidemiological tour to see how public health professionals fight disease around the globe,” noted Barbara Bibel, writing in Library Journal. Smallpox is one of the disease that has been eliminated, but other diseases, such as polio, malaria, and measles remain. The search for ways to get rid of these diseases, especially in more vulnerable that do not have adequate medical care, is covered in the book.
Bartlett shows many useful medical breakthroughs, such as how the inoculation for smallpox was discovered and how polio vaccines were developed by Jonas Salk, the man who has become synonymous with polio treatment, and his scientific rival, Albert Sabin. The author also includes details on the rise of, and fight against, more recent diseases, such as Ebola and Zika.
The fight against devastating contagious diseases can be restricted by multiple factors, Bartlett points out. Lack of research, too-few medical facilities, obstinate government bureaucracies, religious objections, ill-informed resistance to immunizations and vaccinations, and shortfalls of funding can limit progress in preventing and treating epidemic diseases. The problems with reaching isolated populations in developing countries or elsewhere can also limit options. However, Bartlett makes it clear that medical care providers, researchers, public health professionals, and others involved in the fight are determined to reduce and eventually eliminate as many of the epidemic diseases as possible.
There have been failures and setbacks in eliminating some diseases that experts thought would be eradicated by now. Bartlett’s “measured and scholarly book, a deft combination of history and palatable scientific reportage, should, however, give us all hope” for the future, observed Geographical reviewer Jon Wright.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Geographical, June 1, 2017, Jon Wright, review of The Health of Nations: The Campaign to End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases, p. 61.
Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2017, review of The Health of Nations.
Library Journal, March 1, 2017, Barbara Bibel, review of The Health of Nations, p. 97.
Publishers Weekly, February 27, 2017, review of The Health of Nations, p. 92.
ONLINE
Karen Bartlett Website, http://www.karenbartlett.co.uk (October 31, 2017).
Macmillan Website, http://us.macmillan.com/ (October 31, 2017), biography of Karen Bartlett.
Oneworld Publications Website, http://www.oneworld-publications.com/ (October 31, 2017), biography of Karen Bartlett.
KAREN BARTLETT is a writer and journalist based in London. She has written extensively for the Sunday Times, The Times, The Guardian, and WIRED from Africa, India, and the US, and has presented and produced for BBC Radio. Most recently, she worked with Eva Schloss, writing her Sunday Times bestselling autobiography After Auschwitz: A Story of Heartbreak and Survival by the Stepsister of Anne Frank.
Karen Bartlett is a journalist, film-maker and Sunday Times bestselling author whose writing has appeared in the Sunday Times, The Times, Guardian, Newsweek, New Statesman and Wired. Previously she worked with Nelson Mandela and United World Colleges, the Fabian Society, and as director of the human rights campaign group Charter88. She lives in Barnet, London.
Karen Bartlett is a writer and film maker based in London. After working for the BBC and Channel 4 News she joined The Times, and wrote a series of Times 2 cover stories including an exclusive interview with Nelson Mandela’s daughter to mark his 90th birthday, an investigation into Kaballah in UK schools, the phenomenon of girls football in Kenya, and the Homeless World Cup.
Karen has written for The Sunday Times, The Times, Newsweek and WIRED. Prior to that she wrote for the New Statesman and a weekly column for The Newcastle Journal. In 2007 Karen made a short documentary about architect Frank Gehry, and another about the ‘Palm Dog’ which was screened at the London Film Festival. She presented and produced a BBC World Service documentary about the ‘science of thrill’.
Before becoming a journalist Karen’s background was in politics. She began her career in the UK and South Africa. After returning to London she worked for The Fabian Society before becoming Director of campaign group Charter88. In 2003 Karen was short-listed for the role of General Secretary of the Labour Party.
She is the author of two non-fiction books and is currently writing a third.
The Health of Nations: Towards a World Without Contagious Disease
Jon Wright
89.6 (June 1, 2017): p61.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Circle Publishing Ltd.
http://www.geographical.co.uk/
THE HEALTH OF NATIONS: Towards a World Without Contagious Disease
by Karen Bartlett; Oneworld; [pounds sterling]18.99 (hardback)
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The world's leading health organisations were not easily convinced that total eradication of polio would be possible. Great success had been achieved in both Europe and the US during the 1950s and 1960s but could we ever wipe out a disease which produced so many 'invisible carriers' with no symptoms? By the late 1980s, though, the gauntlet was thrown down at the highest levels and, at first, progress was impressively swift. Then came India, a nation with so many remote populations and in which the birth rate outstripped the ability to inoculate. The polio workers, the heroes of Karen Bartlett's book, soldiered on undeterred and ultimately reached their goal. It was a wonderful example and, these days, polio is only endemic in three countries around the globe: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. So far as polio is concerned,
Bartlett writes, 'the end game is on.'
As cheering as this is, Bartlett reminds us that the final stages of eradication are always going to be the hardest: there is cash to be found, science to be polished, and political momentum to be sustained. If absolute eradication is not achieved then 'critics will point to the 30-year, $8.6billion campaign and claim it has spent a staggering amount of money and expended huge efforts in chasing an impossible dream.' The stakes could not be higher. Those critics can also point to the failure of previous attempts at total eradication. Smallpox may have been defeated by 1979, but many other terrible diseases clung on. This measured and scholarly book, a deft combination of history and palatable scientific reportage, should, however, give us all hope. If you believe the Gates Foundation, malaria may be vanquished by mid-century.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Wright, Jon. "The Health of Nations: Towards a World Without Contagious Disease." Geographical, 1 June 2017, p. 61. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA497798210&it=r&asid=1645fa9847c1cf427a46e36275dc3352. Accessed 9 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A497798210
Bartlett, Karen. The Health of Nations: The Campaign To End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases
Barbara Bibel
142.4 (Mar. 1, 2017): p97.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Bartlett, Karen. The Health of Nations: The Campaign To End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases. Oneworld Pubs. Apr. 2017. 304p. photos. notes. ISBN 9781786070685. $24.99; ebk. ISBN 9781786070692. HEALTH
Smallpox, polio, measles, and malaria are a few of the diseases that cause devastation in many countries. Smallpox has been eradicated, but ridding the world of other viruses is not easy. Bartlett (with Eva Schloss, After Auschwitz: A Story of Heartbreak and Survival), a London-based journalist and former director of human rights group Charter88, takes readers on an epidemiological tour to see how public health professionals fight disease around the globe. From Edward Jenner's discovery that inoculating people with cowpox would prevent smallpox to the development of rival polio vaccines by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin to efforts to contain outbreaks of Ebola and Zika, she looks at the obstacles posed by a lack of resources, government bureaucracies, and the difficulties of reaching isolated rural areas. She also covers the contributions of nonprofits and organizations such as the Gates Foundation. Anyone interested in public health and its interface with politics will find both hope and frustration here. VERDICT A fascinating look at epidemiology and the challenges that public health workers face.--Barbara Bibel, formerly Oakland P.L.
Caption: Ridding the world of viruses; picturing every bird in the sky; examining "acts of harm or help"
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bibel, Barbara. "Bartlett, Karen. The Health of Nations: The Campaign To End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases." Library Journal, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 97. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA483702186&it=r&asid=7d0c1e444c6d61a72de9700ac85f0bfc. Accessed 9 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A483702186
Bartlett , Karen: THE HEALTH OF NATIONS
(Mar. 1, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Bartlett , Karen THE HEALTH OF NATIONS Oneworld Publications (Adult Nonfiction) $24.80 4, 11 ISBN: 978-1-78607-068-5
Will the world ever be rid of infectious disease?London-based journalist, filmmaker, and author Bartlett (Dusty: An Intimate Portrait of a Musical Legend, 2014, etc.) reviews attempts to conquer infections from the days of Edward Jenner and the advent of the germ theory of disease to current efforts to eradicate polio. The book's structure is complicated and not chronological. The author begins with smallpox, explaining that the strategy leading to eradication called for "surveillance and containment." Rather than massive vaccinations of populations, the idea was to identify a case and then vaccinate all the persons who had been in contact with the patient. She follows with a detailed account of the development of the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines and the current global effort at eradication, often stalled due to war, falsehoods, and politics. Sadly, in the film Zero Dark Thirty, the Pakistani doctor who collected blood samples for DNA to verify Osama bin Laden's location for the CIA was wrongly identified as a polio vaccinator. That led to a Taliban ban on vaccination and the subsequent murders of polio vaccine volunteers. Bartlett also discusses the role of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the polio campaign and controversies in the global health community about how priorities should be set. Then she returns to history with a minireview of immunology science followed by chronicles of the wins and losses over the years in the battles against a variety of diseases. Bartlett also reviews in detail the long history of anti-vaccination campaigns, currently on the rise in America. The narrative can sometimes overwhelm with names, dates, places, bureaucratic agencies, and acronyms. Some individuals and programs are highly efficient and effective; some are hopelessly venal and corrupt. Still others, like the World Health Organization, she writes, are simply understaffed and underfunded. Bartlett makes it abundantly clear that research to reduce the impact of infectious disease is progressing but that politics, budgetary constraints, competing priorities, and ego clashes are serious impediments.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Bartlett , Karen: THE HEALTH OF NATIONS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA482911574&it=r&asid=8ae6d0a788fb369a5ad010a9aa00523f. Accessed 9 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A482911574
The Health of Nations: The Campaign to End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases
264.9 (Feb. 27, 2017): p92.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Health of Nations: The Campaign to End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases
Karen Bartlett. Oneworld, $24.99 (304p)
ISBN 978-1-78607-068-5
In this timely but bland account, British journalist and filmmaker Bartlett (Dusty: Lost Icon) chronicles several international campaigns to eradicate contagious diseases such as polio, smallpox, and Ebola. Focusing on the long, expensive, contentious fight against polio, Bartlett discusses the politics of immunization as well as the cultural and religious barriers to locating and immunizing the unvaccinated 2% of the world's children. She tries to impart a sense of the hardships health professionals face, but her lackluster writing fails to bring her heroic subjects to life. Disease eradication, she argues, was a 20th-century dream. Now, religious intolerance and factionalism have put that dream at risk. While smallpox was eradicated in 1979, all other campaigns have "ended in failure." Despite sustained efforts by international health organizations and wealthy philanthropists, world disease continues to plague the young and the impoverished; Bartlett points out that although tropical diseases account for 90% of the global disease burden, they receive about 10% of the research funds. She also covers battles to eliminate malaria, yellow fever, and Guinea worm, though they're not considered contagious diseases. Readers who follow world news will find little here that's surprising or heartening. Agent: Gaia Banks, Shell Land Associates (U.K.). (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Health of Nations: The Campaign to End Polio and Eradicate Epidemic Diseases." Publishers Weekly, 27 Feb. 2017, p. 92. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA485671233&it=r&asid=2fae85776fc8adf5400a414bc84261cc. Accessed 9 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A485671233