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Summary:
On December 9, 1979, smallpox, the most deadly human virus, ceased to exist in nature. After eradication, it was confined to freezers located in just two places on earth: the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Maximum Containment Laboratory in Siberia. But these final samples were not destroyed at that time, and now secret stockpiles of smallpox surely exist. For example, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the subsequent end of its biological weapons program, a sizeable amount of the former Soviet Union's smallpox stockpile remains unaccounted for, leading to fears that the virus has fallen into the hands of nations or terrorist groups willing to use it as a weapon. Scarier yet, some may even be trying to develop a strain that is resistant to vaccines. This disturbing reality is the focus of this fascinating, terrifying, and important book.
A longtime contributor to The New Yorker and author of the bestseller The Hot Zone, Preston is a skillful journalist whose work flows like a science fiction thriller. Based on extensive interviews with smallpox experts, health workers, and members of the U.S. intelligence community, The Demon in the Freezer details the history and behavior of the virus and how it was eventually isolated and eradicated by the heroic individuals of the World Health Organization. Preston also explains why a battle still rages between those who want to destroy all known stocks of the virus and those who want to keep some samples alive until a cure is found. This is a bitterly contentious point between scientists. Some worry that further testing will trigger a biological arms race, while others argue that more research is necessary since there are currently too few available doses of the vaccine to deal with a major outbreak. The anthrax scare of October, 2001, which Preston also writes about in this book, has served to reinforce the present dangers of biological warfare.
As Preston eloquently states in this powerful book, this scourge, once contained, was let loose again due to human weakness: "The virus's last strategy for survival was to bewitch its host and become a source of power. We could eradicate smallpox from nature, but we could not uproot the virus from the human heart." --Shawn Carkonen
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Terrifying Face of Biological Weapons' Future
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Before reading The Demon in the Freezer, I was not aware of the extent to which science has gone in the effort to weaponize biological agents. It was astounding to learn about the perversion of biological science , of transforming epidemic disease into a weapon. Preston provided a comprehensive overview of the history of biological weapons programs in the Soviet Union, of the international smallpox eradication program, and of the recent bioterror scares involving anthrax. Yet in attempting to cover so much historical, topical, and geographic ground, The Demon in the Freezer can feel chaotic at times. Jumping from a young researcher's accident with ebola virus to an island in Bangladesh forty years previously, it is occasionally difficult to divine a cohesive theme from Preston's book, or to process the immense variety of information he provides. On the other hand, personally profiling each of the individuals-- smallpox victims, doctors, and scientists-- helps to paint a picture of this devastating disease in a way that no medical textbook could. Preston brings frightening epidemic diseases back into the public consciousness, explaining their pathology and the widescale social and political impacts faced by those who decide to harness them as weapons. Richard Preston's book should be commended for bringing a comprehensible survey of recent epidemiology to the public. It is an entertaining, sometimes terrifying novel that provides a human face to the specter of biological weapons.
Terrifying and true
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Before reading this book, I was ignorant of the status of smallpox in the world. Perhaps ignorance is bliss, but not knowing about something doesn't make it go away. Preston's books read better than most fiction -- the awful thing is that it's not fiction. If ever one questioned world sanity, this book will put the questions to rest. The world (or at least a lot of the governments of same) is insane. Smallpox is going to bite us in the ass someday, and there will be no excuse for it whatsoever. We will have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
I like this book.
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Preston's masterpiece collects some of the most important characters and ideas in the past century of infectious disease and combines them into a very readable, engrossing novel that almost makes you forget you're reading nonfiction.
For me, the world of using disease as a weapon was a very abstract concept just a few months ago. I knew that it had been done before, it has the potential to kill lots of people, it's not allowed, and it is very bad. I'd heard about the anthrax cases earlier this decade, and evidently I didn't pick up very much from what I heard.
"Demon in the Freezer" effectively takes these concepts and stuffs them into very real, relatable characters whose dialogue and inner thoughts provide much more insight into the field of infectious disease than what one normally receives from a 30-second report on the evening news.
Lisa Hensley, one of the main characters, particularly sticks out in my mind. Her very human feelings allow us to easily connect with a person in a field that we usually don't see. She eats Lean Cuisine. She worries about her significant other while at work. I've been doing a lot of reading on virology and infectious disease, and the change to a more personal explanation of the topic is absolutely refreshing.
Don't expect to learn anything too profound or science-y from this book. That's not what it was meant to be.
thank you
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Mr. Preston,I'm going to address you that way out of deep respect,Sir, thank you! Though I am several years your senior you have lifted a lifelong burden from me.It began at about age ten with the first of numerous readings of "A Canticle For Leibowitz". You see, I've been waking up in terror of nuclear bombs all my life. I awake and I say to myself, "this cannot be real, they, other humans, cannot have done this, made these things, but in my hyper awake state I know it's real and cannot push it aside as usually when I am fully awake".
Actually,I feel uncomfortable addressing you as "Mr.". You surely have earned an M.D./PhD in this field by now.Dr. Preston, Sir, I no longer fear large hydrogen bombs.I see that they are, if mass murder is the goal,very humane. In fact,fantastically humane compared to boosted smallpox or anthrax or plague resistant to any known vaccine or antibiotic ( as the case may be depending on the lifeform etc )delivered by ICBM riding on MIRVs.
Please,you over there in the Russian Federation,yes, you monsters,please send the H Bombs not the germs. But,and it was totally news to me,since you developed this abject horror of horrors,why did you not use it? And, have you destroyed your many ton stockpile? Are the MIRVs now empty of the end of the human race? Was that the reason?
Dr. Preston, I'm going pay you the respect I think you've earned,what people you've encountered and let us meet in this and "Hot Zone" which I also just read. The best people a society can produce. People who can walk into level four in a suit and not panic. I know what fate would await me there. I feel as if I know some of them personally. I'd feel self conscious and unworthy to be in the same room with most of the real life characters in your book.
Yet, what of this horror now? You've taken away from me this life long crippling fear. This dread that other humans really made these things. Ah, but they are so crude and can only vaporize a human or a city. That's really nothing compared to what, in many cases, you leave unsaid.
And now, as we watch this new flu spreading out of any control whatsoever, those of us who have read your books can fear the "multiplier" of smallpox or plague.
I wondered as I read this book if eradicating smallpox was really the best thing to have done. You say a billion people died from it in the 100 years prior to the last cast in 1978. Yet, what would the world's population be today had this and other diseases not existed? Yet, you comment on this as well in pointing out the concentration of humanity in cities and explaining to us that some diseases like smallpox cannot exist without a minimum critical mass of human beings to keep it flowing in and out of a population.
You hint you know the truth: That over population and concentration of it may make fighting diseases like smallpox difficult in the future even in the absence of terror weapons like unstoppable genetically engineered strains. And, if such novel human variations on a theme of horror of something like smallpox were to get loose.....
Well, the problem is that while Western science, scientific methods, and organization have ended or slowed many diseases, there has not been a concomitant reduction in birthrate in those areas typically the prime target of the disease in the recent past ( read this India for example ). Nature is a grim reaper and will control our population even if we will not.
I am left with one large question after reading this book and "Hot Zone". That is to question the humanity of letting people die of things like variola major, ebola, or the worst strains of anthrax. This reminds me of a section in "Canticle" where there has been another nuclear war and the government has set up special stations for those with terminal radiation poisoning-places where they can die peacefully without having to go through the entire menu of horrors awaiting them.
We'd all certainly have to make informed individual decisions if we were to learn we had contracted a strain of genetically modified smallpox that is incurable. That's where my question originates. I knew things were bad regarding genetic engineering. What I didn't know, that this book has informed me of, is just "how" bad the future looks.
We should not be tinkering with DNA or RNA. We haven't got the intelligence to control what may be produced. As you said, Trinity was for physicists.....what nothing yet has come along similar for biologists.....it makes me think of Oppenheimer and his famous quote not to be repeated here because any literate adult should know the one to which I refer. That god....the god of smallpox......
S. Ma
How can the same animal both end a horror like smallpox and amplify it into something that could end the species? Can such an animal be rational and intelligent as we so proudly trumpet? Or are we just a subspecies of chimp who, unfortunately for ourselves and our planet and all it's other lifeforms, is just a little bit too clever for our collective good?
I'd say chimp...though I mean no disrespect to that species as it's not likely to cause the harm that our species has only just begun to commit.
Thank you again, Mr/Dr Preston. Knowledge is a good thing even if it removes one horror by replacing it with one even worse. You're just the highly able and insightful messenger....not responsible for this horror. I cannot think of anything more to say except may God help us and protect us from ourselves.
ps. You are now on my very short list of famous people I'd like to meet personally. This is a very short list and now that Gould and Clarke are gone is shorter still. I'd like to shake you hand and will do so here in a virtual sense. I'd only like to say two words to you: "Thank You".
don't read if you want to sleep well tonight
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Compelling as can be, and equally terrifying. Not fear mongering as he does not call for political action . . . just telling us what might happen if this nightmare were to be unleashed. And it is all possible.
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