About the Author
Pamela Nagami received her M.D. from Yale University in 1976 and is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in internal medicine and infectious diseases. She is Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine and staff physician in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Southern California Permanente Medical Group’s Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Woodland Hills. Dr. Nagami and her partner help manage the infectious-disease problems of the over 120,000 adult Kaiser Health Plan members in their area. In addition, she maintains a primary care practice of 1,200 patients.

Dr. Nagami is the author of three book chapters and of thirteen articles and abstracts within her specialty. Her chapter on infectious diseases in Current Emergency Diagnosis and Treatment is a standard medical reference and is used in many emergency rooms worldwide.

Dr. Nagami has received awards for excellence in clinical teaching both from UCLA and from her own hospital, which has twice named her Physician of the Year. She has made numerous national and local television appearances and has given hundreds of lectures within the University of California system and the community at large. She was interviewed by Connie Chung on “The Infectious Disease Consequences of Nuclear War,” and has appeared on television news broadcasts to discuss such topics as influenza, “flesh-eating strep,” and the hanta virus.

Pamela has been married for twenty-one years to Glenn Nagami, M.D., an academic nephrologist. They have two children, ages fifteen and seventeen.

Book Description (from the publisher)
WHAT WE DON'T KNOW DOES KILL US. Outbreaks of mad cow disease, salmonella, e-coli, or some other tainting organisms make you wonder whether the double cheeseburger you just ate will be your last. The debate continues over genetically engineered food and animal feed made with the body parts of other animals. Mysterious flesh-eating infections, the threat of germ warfare, and newly discovered viruses are alarming and leave you wondering when and where the next biodisaster will appear.

Would you willingly expose yourself to a contagious and life-threatening disease, or voluntarily become intimate with the smell of a staph infection (mousy, musty, rancid) or the tell-tale odor of pus? Meet Pamela Nagami, M.D. In her world, these things are common occurrences. She is an authority on infectious diseases, and in Maneater and Other True Stories of a Life in Infectious Diseases (Renaissance Books, $24.95, November 2001) she chronicles stories that will shock, amaze, and alert readers.

When Danielle Jordan innocently ordered a salad for lunch in Puerta Vallarta she had no idea she had just become the “host” to an organism that six years later would grow into a worm and burrow into her brain.

Charlie Blair caught chickenpox, but he wasn’t a kid, he was an adult, and that common childhood disease can attack a man and ravage his body until he looks like a third-degree burn victim.

The patients in Maneater are ordinary Americans. They contracted “flesh-eating strep” and meningococcal disease in places they go every day. Infectious diseases are global and democratic, but we can learn from the case histories of those who have already become victims. Maneater will take readers on rounds with Dr. Nagami. They will learn from a safe distance what the diseases are, what it’s like to be a medical detective, and how it feels to make the medical and ethical decisions that can mean the difference between life and death.

In MANEATER and Other True Stories of a Life in Infectious Diseases, Dr. Nagami delves into the world of bugs and drugs-approaching her work like a forensic scientist or a case-hardened private eye. Her stories are shocking, fascinating, and true.

The patients whose stories appear in MANEATER are ordinary people whose case histories can serve as warnings to us all. Jeremey Albright, for example, is alive today because his mother was alarmed by the maroon spots on his arms. Other people in this book were brought to the doctor by alert family members who realized there was something strangely, seriously wrong.

Specialists in infectious diseases understand that at every level of human existence, a brutal struggle is going on between our world and a microscopic one. Dr. Nagami gets close enough to the diseases to know them intimately.

Lulled into a false sense of security by the effectiveness of modern antibiotics, scientists failed to realize that the killer organisms themselves would evolve, that there would be limits to the human ability to develop new medicines fast enough to keep pace. Evolutionary change in humans takes generations, but microorganisms are different. New generations-new strains-of microorganisms with new characteristics can emerge in a matter of weeks.

MANEATER will take readers on rounds with Dr. Nagami. From a safe distance they will learn what some of these diseases are, what it is like to be a medical detective, and how it feels to make the medical and ethical decisions that can mean the difference between life and death.

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