Liz Borkowski writes: Mark Pendergrast's Inside the Outbreaks: The Elite Medical Detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence Service is a fast-paced tour through nearly six decades of epidemiology achievements by this relatively small program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's a fast and fascinating read, and its episodic structure makes it an easy book to carry around and dip into whenever you've a got a few minutes of free time.
The public-health professionals who join the EIS - usually for two-year stints, though some stay longer - are often young and willing to take risks…