Product Description

In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks in the USA, the Western world had to deal with a new threat: bioterrorism. In October 2001 a series of anthrax attacks through the American postal system casued chaos and fear. But there was a far greater danger that had government security advisers around the world even more alarmed: smallpox. In this account of what happened and could still happen, Richard Preston reveals the horror faced by victims of smallpox, raises questions about what happened to the smallpox viruses that were kept in storage after the disease was "eradicated" in 1979, and shows just how easy it would be to create new strains of smallpox that would be able to overcome any vaccination, leaving the population defenceless.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #706350 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

About the Author
Richard Preston was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1954. He received a PhD from Princeton University, and is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. His first non-fiction book, THE HOT ZONE, was an international bestseller. He is the only non-medical doctor ever to have been awarded the Center for Disease Control's Champion of Prevention Award.

Customer Reviews

"The way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."
T. S. Eliot's bleak vision of the future doesn't even begin to include the gloomy prognostications revealed in this book. That terrorists will either acquire or develop biological weapons capable of destroying all human life is not just a possibility, it's a probability, as Preston makes abundantly clear in this update on biological weapons development. This book is the ultimate wake-up call. Even if you want to sleep after reading this, you may not be able to.

Of the several biological weapons which have been under development in the past twenty-five years, smallpox is by far the most lethal and contagious, and irresponsible scientists have genetically engineered it in the past few years to make vaccination useless against it. Antidotes are unknown because humans are the only hosts for smallpox, and there is no way to run a test study of their efficacy. Preston points out, "It has taken the world twenty years to reach roughly fifty million cases of AIDS. [A single case of smallpox in an unprotected population] can reach that point in ten to twenty weeks."

A massive research and development program for weapons grade smallpox and plague, along with the MIRV missiles and warheads to deliver them abroad, continued, unknown and unmonitored, in the Soviet Union for twenty years after smallpox was officially eradicated in 1978. The whereabouts of the twenty tons of "hot," genetically altered smallpox are currently unknown. According to a defecting Russian scientist, even the Soviet researchers do not know where it went, but "they think it went to North Korea." Iran and Iraq are also believed to have "benefited" from this research and to have ongoing, active bioweapons research programs.

Preston's focus on the people who are actively fighting potential biological terrorism in this country gives a human face to this frightening prospect, while his descriptions of the individuals who fought for their lives in the world's last cases of smallpox make the horror an all too vivid reality. His analysis of the anthrax outbreak last year, and the delivery systems which make possible such outbreaks of anthrax, Ebola, and plague are enlightening. Forcing the reader to acknowledge the reality of a new kind of war, one more lethal and uncontrollable than ever before in history, Preston illuminates the tenuous nature of human life in the twenty-first century. The tiniest of living organisms are capable of wiping out the entire human population of the world if they get into the hands of a madman. Mary Whipple

Excellent description of the threats from Anthrax & Smallpox
This is the 3rd book of what Richard Preston now refers to as his Dark Biology trilogy. He is undoubtedly one of the most informative writers on this topic, which certainly should be giving great cause for concern.
I would strongly recommend the other 2 books : The Hot Zone is a non-fictional account about Ebola; the 2nd the Cobra Event is a novel, all the more effective for the background knowledge he had acquired.
In this book Preston reverts back to the non-fiction genre to tell an upto date story about Anthrax (following the as yet unsolved incidents in the USA) and Smallpox (and the activities of the Russians in violation of International Treaty).
There are other books available that had already discussed Anthrax or and/or Smallpox, so some of the material I already knew, but the section that was news to me, and thus more fascinating, was the description about the Smallpox outbreak at Meschede Hospital in Germany in 1970.
If I have one criticism about Preston, it is that whilst he tries to show you the human side of what the participants were thinking at the time, he sometimes plays it to excess giving out superfluous information. This may be of use in a novel to create a sense of character, but in a non-fictional account, it isn't necessary. For example, instead of just saying he has lunch with one of his interviewees, you get the brand name of the beer that they drank (Molson). Elsewhere he describes meetings with others that they were drinking Glenmorangie & Linkwood Malt Whisky - at least he saved us from saying how old the Whisky was, or whether or not they had water with it.
Despite these Product Placement issues, he is an author to follow.

"The way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."
T. S. Eliot's bleak vision of the future doesn't even begin to include the gloomy prognostications revealed in this book. That terrorists will either acquire or develop biological weapons capable of destroying all human life is not just a possibility, it's a probability, as Preston makes abundantly clear in this update on biological weapons development. This book is the ultimate wake-up call. Even if you want to sleep after reading this, you may not be able to.

Of the several biological weapons which have been under development in the past twenty-five years, smallpox is by far the most lethal and contagious, and irresponsible scientists have genetically engineered it in the past few years to make vaccination useless against it. Antidotes are unknown because humans are the only hosts for smallpox, and there is no way to run a test study of their efficacy. Preston points out, "It has taken the world twenty years to reach roughly fifty million cases of AIDS. [A single case of smallpox in an unprotected population] can reach that point in ten to twenty weeks."

A massive research and development program for weapons grade smallpox and plague, along with the MIRV missiles and warheads to deliver them abroad, continued, unknown and unmonitored, in the Soviet Union for twenty years after smallpox was officially eradicated in 1978. The whereabouts of the twenty tons of "hot," genetically altered smallpox are currently unknown. According to a defecting Russian scientist, even the Soviet researchers do not know where it went, but "they think it went to North Korea." Iran and Iraq are also believed to have "benefited" from this research and to have ongoing, active bioweapons research programs.

Preston's focus on the people who are actively fighting potential biological terrorism gives a human face to this frightening prospect, while his descriptions of the individuals who fought for their lives in the world's last cases of smallpox make the horror an all too vivid reality. His analysis of the anthrax outbreak in the U.S. last year, and the delivery systems which make possible such outbreaks of anthrax, Ebola, and plague are enlightening. Forcing the reader to acknowledge the reality of a new kind of war, one more lethal and uncontrollable than ever before in history, Preston illuminates the tenuous nature of human life in the twenty-first century. The tiniest of living organisms are capable of wiping out the entire human population of the world if they get into the hands of a madman. Mary Whipple