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Summary
Summary
"The bard of biological weapons captures the drama of the front lines." -Richard Danzig, former secretary of the navy The first major bioterror event in the United States-the anthrax attacks in October 2001-was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense. Peter Jahrling, the top scientist at Usamriid, a wry virologist who cut his teeth on Ebola, one of the world's most lethal emerging viruses, has ORCON security clearance that gives him access to top secret information on bioweapons. His most urgent priority is to develop a drug that will take on smallpox-and win. Eradicated from the planet in 1979 in one of the great triumphs of modern science, the smallpox virus now resides, officially, in only two high-security freezers-at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and in Siberia, at a Russian virology institute called Vector. But the demon in the freezer has been set loose. It is almost certain that illegal stocks are in the possession of hostile states, including Iraq and North Korea. Jahrling is haunted by the thought that biologists in secret labs are using genetic engineering to create a new superpox virus, a smallpox resistant to all vaccines. Usamriid went into a state of Delta Alert on September 11 and activated its emergency response teams when the first anthrax letters were opened in New York and Washington, D.C. Preston reports, in unprecedented detail, on the government's response to the attacks and takes us into the ongoing FBI investigation. His story is based on interviews with top-level FBI agents and with Dr. Steven Hatfill. Jahrling is leading a team of scientists doing controversial experiments with live smallpox virus at CDC. Preston takes us into the lab where Jahrling is reawakening smallpox and explains, with cool and devastating precision, what may be at stake if his last bold experiment fails.
Author Notes
Richard Preston graduated summa cum laude from Pomona College in California and received a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University. He began his career as a journalist writing for the New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic Traveler and Blair & Ketchum's Country Journal. He has also been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1985.
One of Preston's earlier novels, "First Light," was a book on astronomy that won him the American Institute of Physics Award, and he has an asteroid the size of Mount Everest named after him. He also wrote "The Hot Zone," which is a true story about an outbreak of the Ebola virus near Washington, D.C. and inspired the movie Outbreak that starred Dustin Hoffman. "The Cobra Event" is a thriller about biological weapons and terrorism. He spent three years researching biological weapons and his sources included high-ranking government officials, and the scientists who invented and tested these weapons. The story tells of a medical doctor who works with the FBI to stop an act of bio-terrorism in New York City. Preston is now considered an expert in the areas of disease and biotechnology; and the FBI and President Clinton, in regards to disease and bio-warfare, have sought out his opinion.
Preston has won several awards that include the McDermott Award in the Arts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Overseas Press Club of America's Whitman Basso Award for the best reporting in any medium on environmental issues for "The Hot Zone." His title Micro with Michael Crichton made the New York Times Best Seller list for 2011.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Never mind Ebola, the hemorrhagic disease that was the main subject of Preston's 1994 #1 bestseller, The Hot Zone. What we really should be worrying about, explains Preston in this terrifying, cautionary new title, is smallpox, or variola. But wasn't that eradicated? many might ask, particularly older Americans who remember painful vaccinations and the resultant scars. Officially, yes, nods Preston, who devotes the first half of the book to the valorous attempt by an army of volunteers to wipe out the virus (an attempt initially sparked by '60s icon Ram Dass and his Indian guru) via strategic vaccination; in 1977 the last case of naturally occurring smallpox was documented in Somalia, and today the variola virus exists officially in only two storage depots, in Russia and at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta (in the freezer of the title). To believe that variola is not held elsewhere, however, is nonsense, argues Preston, who delves into the possibility that several nations, including Iraq and Russia, have recently worked or are currently working with smallpox as a biological weapon. The author devotes much space to the anthrax attacks of last fall, mostly to demonstrate how easily a devastating assault with smallpox could occur here. He includes an interview with Steven Hatfill, who has received much press coverage for the FBI's investigation of him regarding those attacks; his description of meeting Hatfill, hallmarked by a quick character sketch ("He was a vital, engaging man, with a sharp mind and a sense of humor.... He was heavy-set but looked fit, and he had dark blue eyes") is emblematic of what makes this New Yorker regular's writing so gripping. Preston humanizes his science reportage by focusing on individuals-scientists, patients, physicians, government figures. That, and a flair for teasing out without overstatement the drama in his inherently compelling topics, plus a prose style that's simple and forceful, make this book as exciting as the best thrillers, yet scarier by far, for Preston's pages deal with clear, present and very real dangers. (On sale Oct. 8) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The author of the best-selling Hot Zone (1994) scares the living daylights out of us again with a new book on smallpox. The scheduled author interviews will create the initial buzz, followed by word of mouth.
Choice Review
Preston has written another riveting account of the horrors of microbiology gone awry. This latest work narrates the anthrax bioterrorist attacks in 2001 and tells of a potentially more deadly bioweapon, the smallpox virus. The events of the anthrax attacks and the information gathered by researchers and related by Preston make readers aware of the ease with which anthrax may be manufactured and used as a bioweapon. The story of the devastation and eradication of the smallpox virus, and of its continued existence and use in both legitimate and illegal research, will make readers aware of the possibility of its potential use as a bioweapon. Preston highlights the human suffering and loss that smallpox caused by bringing to life the patients, doctors, and researchers involved in the last cases of smallpox as well as those still involved with its existence. Although technical terms are used, Preston explains the terms very well in both text and glossary. The book is written in an easily read, thriller style that can be understood by anyone. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers. P. M. Watt formerly, University of Arizona
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-This book about smallpox begins with the anthrax attacks of October, 2001, and, by the end of this thriller, Preston has chillingly linked the two topics. All of the anthrax evidence from the Hart Senate Office Building was taken to the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, MD, and it is here that the author first brings smallpox into consideration by introducing Peter Jahrling, the organization's senior scientist. He believes that smallpox, which has killed more people than any other infectious disease, is the greatest biological threat facing humanity. Preston relates the history of smallpox from 1000 B.C. to the outbreaks in the 1970s. He goes into great detail about the World Health Organization's campaign to eradicate it and the lost opportunity to destroy it forever. His final chapter introduces the idea of genetically modified smallpox that might be resistant not only to vaccines, but also to acquired immunity. The author draws readers into his narrative by humanizing his facts; researchers, WHO workers, and smallpox victims relay parts of this vivid and alarming story. Fans of Preston's The Hot Zone (Anchor, 1995) will definitely want to read this work for that subtle blend of information and horror that he is so adept at providing.-Jody Sharp, Harford County Public Library, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Preston guides us deftly on another scary excursion (Hot Zone, 1994) into the world of really bad viruses--this time smallpox, with a side helping of anthrax. The author's steady, ominous voice gives the world of smallpox a particular grimness: Epidemiologists consider it the worst human disease on record, having killed perhaps a billion people over the last 100 years. The scourge went to the brink of extinction, having been targeted for erasure from the natural world through a comprehensive eradication program ("No greater deed was ever done in medicine, and no better thing ever came from the human spirit," declares Preston). Since the disease had last been seen in nature in 1979, during the Cold War, it was decided that samples of the various strains would be kept in both the US and in the USSR. After that, it wasn't long before the black absurdity of an even greater menace was conjured up by its specter as a bio-weapon--manipulable and dreadful. Preston takes readers through the eradication program, describing in clipped detail smallpox's effects. He outlines the potential of the virus as a biological weapon and explains why it is thought that Russia developed and deployed missiles outfitted with smallpox-laden warheads in the 1990s (he doesn't conjecture what the US may have been doing, if anything, along such lines during the same period) and suggests that anyone who believes that smallpox samples are held only by Russia and the US is living in a fool's paradise. Those doing research on smallpox--proposals to destroy the last known strains ran into bioethical conflicts--are the same as those detailed to handle the anthrax letters, and Preston takes up that latter subject before moving on to a discussion of super-lethal, vaccine-resistant, antiviral weapons. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from microscopic infectious agents? Welcome to Mr. Preston's frightening neighborhood. Author tour
Library Journal Review
In an account that might well be called Return of the Hot Zone, Preston sends out alarms that smallpox could reenter our midst and what's worse, in genetically engineered form. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Something in the Air | p. 1 |
| The Dreaming Demon | p. 23 |
| To Bhola Island | p. 49 |
| The Other Side of the Moon | p. 81 |
| A Woman with a Peaceful Life | p. 109 |
| The Demon's Eyes | p. 145 |
| The Anthrax Skulls | p. 161 |
| Superpox | p. 215 |
| Glossary | p. 235 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 239 |