May 23, 2003

Epidemiologists Need to Shatter the Myth of a Risk-Free Life

By PHILIP ALCABES

When I went to graduate school to study epidemiology 25 years ago, almost nobody knew what it was; now it is popular enough that you can get a doctorate in it at any of 30 American universities. Unfortunately, AIDS has helped to bring epidemiology into the public's awareness. As has Laurie Garrett's book The Coming Plague, about emerging infectious diseases, and Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, about an outbreak of the Ebola virus in a lab near Washington. Then came hepatitis C, Lyme disease,

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