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Title: Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox by Patrick Cullen, Jonathan Tucker ISBN: 0-7861-2337-0 Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.84 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating!
Comment: This fascinating book is the story of smallpox. Starting with the distant past, the author traces the history of smallpox's relationship with mankind. Then, the book goes into luxurious detail on the World Health Organization's campaign to stamp smallpox out. But, just when it seems that the story should be over, it takes an ominous turn when the author begins chronicling the Soviet Union's nightmarish program of breeding smallpox as a weapon. This horrendous project is traced from its genesis after World War 2, through the use of modern genetic splicing to enhance the disease's lethality under Mikhail Gorbachev, to its continuance even after the fall of the Soviet Union.
This is a fascinating book! Unlike some books I've read recently, this one dragged me along, keeping me up at night when I could not put it down. As I know little about the topic, I appreciated the way the author made the whole subject clear to me, educating me while keeping me entranced. Overall I would say that this is a great book, one well worth the cost. I highly recommend it!
Rating: 5
Summary: This one is difficult to put down.
Comment: The eradication of smallpox was one of the great medical successes of the 20th century. As Tucker (Toxic Terror) explains, smallpox has devastated humankind throughout most of its history. Highly contagious and with a fatality rate of about 30%, smallpox killed three times more people than did wars during the last century. Tucker describes the ravages caused by the disease and succinctly traces its role in history: its use as a biological weapon (by colonists against Native Americans, the British against American colonists during the Rwevolution and by both sides during the American Civil War) and the World Health Organization's remarkable battle, waged largely under the direction of Dr. D.A. Henderson, against naturally occurring smallpox (the battle was won in 1980). Even as the last traces of smallpox were being destroyed, however, the Soviets were experimenting with military uses for the deadly virus. Drawing on popularly published sources, Tucker argues that such research continued at least until the Soviet Union disbanded, and probably beyond. Other than mentioning that President Nixon prohibited such research in the United States, Tucker remains silent about any U.S. offensive strategies involving the disease. Warning that terrorists might well have access to samples of the smallpox virus, he remarks that, if successfully unleashed, the virus could decimate the world's population. Even though a naturally occurring case of smallpox has not been seen in more than 20 years, the government spends millions of dollars annually researching treatment strategies and producing vaccines for storage. Tucker breathes new life into mostly familiar material; the book is difficult to put down.
Rating: 5
Summary: Different viewpoint of the same problem.
Comment: I just recently finish Preston's book 'The Demon in the Freezer'. You would think that would fulfill my appetite for knowledge concerning smallpox, right? But that particular book and this one, Scourge, are very different. While Preston writes for the masses, often in a very novelistic, suspenseful way to bring information concerning microbial dangers to everyone, this particular book is more for those whose interests and avocations and jobs lie in these fields. This does not mean the book is written boringly. Both books deserved the five stars for different reasons. 'Demon...' was exciting and horrifying in it's details concerning smallpox, this book brings to life the unfortunate politics played behind the scenes by physicians, by government entities such as the Defense Department, by politicians who do not understand the full implications of most biological and bioethical discussions, by entire countries (U.S. and Russia the worst as per usual).
Though Tucker and Preston mention a few names and incidents in common in their books, their writing is very different. Tucker is deeply involved in bioweapons development as a member of an elite group that monitors this type of problem internationally. Preston writes like a journalist. So the impact of their writing is completely different and I personally think anyone interested in this problem is well-served by reading both books.
Scourge tells the story of the political problems not only in eradicating the smallpox worldwide, but the current problem concerning the existence of stocks at the CDC and VEctor, and whether they should be destroyed. Tucker goes into far more detail concerning the problems in India and Bangladesh that made that country one of the last to contain smallpox (and bodes ill should smallpox ever raises its head there again). He also goes into much more detail concerning Russia's two-faced behavior in supplying the world with the vaccine that led to eradication, but in secret continuing to work on smallpox and genetic variations in order to have them for biological weaponry.
Tucker also gives a good warning at the end chapter, that while the ability to use smallpox as a weapon is more difficult then imagined, the possibility of using it still exists. He emphasizes that panic does not contribute anything useful, but awareness and preparation for the possibility does. I am glad that the smallpox vaccinations are there, and I think more physicians and other medical personnel should be prepared for seeing these cases, and being able to differentiate between smallpox, flu, and chickenpox.
Karen Sadler,
Science Education
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Title: Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It by Ken Alibek, Stephen Handelman ISBN: 0385334966 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 11 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston ISBN: 0345466632 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, William Broad ISBN: 0684871599 Publisher: Touchstone Press Pub. Date: 17 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History, With a New Introduction by Donald R. Hopkins ISBN: 0226351688 Publisher: Univ of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project by Ed Regis ISBN: 080505765X Publisher: Owl Books (NY) Pub. Date: 01 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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