Germs Gone Wild - 9781605981000

Battling a new generation of corporate giants and uncoveringthreats right in our own backyard, Kenneth King's Germs GoneWild reveals the massive expansion of America's bio-defense research labs and the culture of deception surrounding hundreds offacilities that have opened since 9/11.

King experienced the menace of bio-defense research firsthandwhen local government and business leaders tried to lure a new facility to his hometown in Kentucky. Researching the safety claims,he not only found many of them to be completely false, but wasalso horrified by the lack of oversight and the recklessness withwhich these labs genetically modified pathogens like smallpox, Ebola, and influenza without a care for what happened to the public if there was ever a “leak.”

And yet the greed that drove the development of these labs haseffectively counteracted any cautionary checks by the governmentand universities. All have been seduced by the economic gainsand corporate stipends that come with compliance and turning ablind eye. But now, the reality of these labs and the germs theymanipulate will finally be brought to light, as King examines thecontroversies surrounding plants from Maryland to Boston andUtah, to the Department of Homeland Security's dubious NationalBio-and-Agro-Facility (NBAF) project, and the precautions—or lackthereof—being taken to protect us all from a deadly pandemic.