Volume 4 of the Phenomenology of Biocatastrophe publication series provides timely commentary and updates on the emergence and growth of antibiotic resistant and viral infections, as well as on other important widespread threats to human health such as the Zika outbreak, Legionnaire's disease, norovirus infections, and the rapid increase in Lyme disease. There is a broad spectrum of antibiotic resistant microbes (ARMs) now impacting a wide variety of bacteria, fungi, pathogens, and other microbial communities. The venues for their identification are the same hospitals, clinics, and research laboratories that lead to the pioneering adaptation of antimicrobial organisms to fight infectious diseases in developed and developing nations. In the United States, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) is the most important source of information on acquired bacterial resistance in human health, including its proliferation in the general community. The CDC publication, "Antibiotic Resistance: Threats in the United States, 2013" is reprinted in its entirety in Appendix 1 of this text.
About the Author: A former volunteer fireman (1963-83), H. G. Skip Brack holds degrees in English from the University of Massachusetts (1966) and the University of Colorado (1967) and was an English instructor at the University of the Pacific. Skip was also a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he helped organize the Stop the Draft movement before leaving academia. In 1970, he was an Earth Day organizer, speaker, researcher, and Director of the New England Ecology Center. He organized the die-in at Logan Airport to protest the supersonic transport (SST), which was cancelled by the US Senate in December of 1970. After moving to West Jonesport, Maine, in the summer of 1970, he opened the Jonesport Wood Company, Inc. and has been in the used hand tool business ever since. Brack now operates tool stores in Hulls Cove, Searsport, and Liberty, Maine. In 1972, Brack organized the Center for Biological Monitoring (1972-2000) and began collating research on chemical fallout and anthropogenic radiation. Skip moved to Hulls Cove in 1983, where he still lives. In 1994, Brack established RADNET: Nuclear Information on the Internet. In 1999, he founded the Davistown Museum, a regional tool, art, and history museum in Liberty, Maine. The Center for Biological Monitoring Archives is now a component of the museum's Department of Environmental History. The museum's extensive website is a major resource for persons, including homeschoolers, interested in New England's Native American, maritime, and industrial history, and the history of hand tools and how they were forged.