There has never been a greater need for comprehensive, well-researched information about herbs' potential to fight infection. In 1998, Stephen Harrod Buhner - a leading herbal practitioner and author - published the first edition of "Herbal Antibiotics" to great acclaim. Since then, health care providers have discovered many new resistant strains of bacteria, researchers have added to the growing body of knowledge about herbs, and the need for antivirals to treat emerging infections like SARS and West Nile Encephalitis has become urgent. Within ten years, according to sources cited in the book, pharmaceutical antibiotics will begin to fail at epidemic rates. There are, in fact, no new antibiotics currently in planning or development at any of the major pharmaceutical companies. Most notably, there is none for Gram-negative bacteria, which are emerging as the most dangerous pathogens.