The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story

I'd just as soon have not read Richard Preston's The Demon in the Freezer if it meant I could remain blissfully ignorant of the disturbing reality that vaccine-resistant smallpox and anthrax is undoubtedly already in the unhinged hands of jihadists or other sadistic dogmatists around the world, and that a large scale bioterrorism attack on North American soil is more a question of when than if. Yet with the bumbling bureaucratic bozos at the Pentagon running amok recently, FedEx'ing live samples of anthrax by mistake to more than fifty unsuspecting laboratories across the States and overseas, perhaps the deadliest likes of Isis are the least of the Western world's worries after all. Look in the mirror for a change, drunk Uncle Sam!

The show more Demon in the Freezer makes me wish I didn't know how to read -- almost -- it's that unnerving. I'd rather not know that the former Soviet Union was producing weapons-grade smallpox by the ton as late as 2001 on the eve of 9/11, and that today -- or so say several Russian scientists who've since defected to the U.S. -- the authorities in the former-USSR have no idea where those tons of weapons-grade smallpox went. Despite the worldwide "eradication" of smallpox in India in 1978, the USA and the former-USSR decided to freeze samples of the virus in order to keep it "safely stored," presumably as a "safeguard" pretext in the event it got into the "wrong hands" and a vaccine needed to be manufactured from the stored samples in an emergency.

Had our wise global protectors simply destroyed all smallpox in the first place, like they were supposed to do when whatever treaty it was got signed and contractually obliged them to do so, no one would have to worry about any virulent vials of smallpox getting smuggled into the wrong hands would they? Oh, but it's more politically complicated than that, Freeque, simply doing the right thing and destroying every ounce of it. Yeah, and only because the bigwigs in this world don't trust each another enough to follow through on their historic, much ballyhooed agreements.

The Demon In The Freezer reads like the finest of John le Carré's espionage thrillers, replete as it is with international intrigue and suspense. Can you imagine United Nations inspectors today confronting Vladimir Putin's covert bioweapons operations in Russia? Neither can I. Good luck, Doomed Earth, against vaccine-resistant smallpox and anthrax! show less

This is singlehandedly the most terrifying book I’ve ever read, and LITERALLY kept me up all night. To think this was published in the early 2000’s is even more terrifying — I’m not sure I want a modern update.
Although I love and am fascinated by epidemiology (thus I read many books on the topic), I am a notorious fainter and this particular book made me queasy on multiple occasions. Usually if I reach the point where something is so gross that I feel an episode coming on, I stop immediately, but in this instance the audiobook was so compelling that I briefly paused to catch my bearings, then continued listening… but physically cringing and on the quietest possible volume. It was like I was watching a train wreck through my show more fingers. I couldn’t look away. show less

Although this book is almost 20 years old, it is very pertinent, given the current pandemic. [The Demon in the Freezer] focuses primarily on efforts to eradicate, once and for all, smallpox from the globe. Like HIV, ebola, and covid-19, smallpox is a virus, immune to antibiotics. (The plague that killed millions during the middle ages, by the way, is a bacteria and IS cured by antibiotics.) A salient menace of smallpox is how easily it spreads. No more than a half-dozen particles of the virus are required to infect a human.

A smallpox outbreak in Germany in 1970 is instructive. Peter Los, 19, had driven with friends from Europe through Turkey and the Middle East to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Upon his return home, he was hospitalized with show more strange symptoms, put in isolation. Within several days, doctors suspected he had smallpox, and they were correct. Los was quickly isolated in a separate building miles from the hospital, and he did eventually recover. The event triggered a massive inoculation effort, not simply of hospital workers, but of everyone living within a specified radius of the facility.

But in the few days Los was in the hospital's isolation unit, 17 others—several hospital workers, patients, and one unlucky visitor—were infected. The visitor put his face to the door of the isolation ward where Los was sequestered. The door was open just a crack, and though he was vehemently warned away and did immediately retreat, he nonetheless contracted "a wicked case" (he did survive). The 16 other people infected all worked in the second and third floors of the main building while Los was housed on the first floor of a semi-detached wing. Later testing with a smoke generator demonstrated how quickly and thoroughly air flowed from the isolation wing and into every corner of the structure. Despite a ban on smoking, Los would open his room's window a crack and puff away. The smoke test revealed that air would flow out the first floor window, up the exterior wall of the main structure, and get pulled into any open window on the second and third floors. Several of the additional cases proved fatal.

In terms of the current pandemic, we all are extraordinarily lucky that covid-19 does not (or at least has not yet) spread so quickly and effectively. The problem with covid-19 is that there's no known cure for it, as there has been for smallpox since the 1700s.

The demon of the title is, of course, the smallpox virus. As author Richard Preston explains, the World Health Organization (WHO) organized a global drive to eradicate smallpox, and in 1979 the goal was achieved. Enter the freezer. Not just a freezer, but a liquid nitrogen charged freezer, and not just A freezer but one in scores of medical research centers throughout the world. WHO negotiated an agreement to eliminate all stocks of smallpox virus with two exceptions: one in a freezer at the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the second in a similar facility in the Soviet Union. These two holdings were to be maintained "just in case."

In the late 1980s, a Soviet defector to the U.K., a virologist, revealed to British intelligence that he was engaged in Soviet research into weaponizing smallpox through genetic engineering. The Soviets had tons, yes, tons of the stuff in their freezers. Not long thereafter, the Soviet Union collapsed. Now who's got The Pox?

Preston, an alum of John McPhee's respected writing course at Princeton University, embraced what he learned from McPhee. He spent days observing researchers in restricted Level 4 labs where "space suits" are required. He interviewed and traveled with researchers, executives, and eradicators in the U.S., Europe, India, and Bangladesh.

Read it. It's important. show less

***NO SPOILERS***

Several years after bringing Ebola to gruesome life in [b:The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus|16213|The Hot Zone The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus|Richard Preston|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1413747743l/16213._SY75_.jpg|909325], Richard Preston returned to writing about infectious disease with The Demon in the Freezer. This book is different from The Hot Zone in that it explores how biological agents--smallpox and anthrax here--could be used as highly effective bioweapons. Preston’s gift for turning stories of disease into exciting thrillers is as apparent as ever. Just as The Hot Zone does with Ebola, The Demon show more in the Freezer transforms tiny, unthinking organisms into scheming villains.

Smallpox is a virus that scientists theorize jumped from an unknown animal to a human 10,000 to 3,000 years ago. By 1980, the world had successfully eradicated it as a disease, but the virus lives on in labs--officially the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S. and a lab in Siberia called Vector. Scientists have no doubt, however, that it’s being stored in additional locations for the express purpose of weaponization. Anthrax is a parasite that can lie dormant in soil for years and tends to infect grazing ungulates (such as cows and sheep). The spores can contaminate a space extensively, and anthrax is more likely to kill if inhaled.

Preston's strength when writing about diseases is in vividly illustrating their potential for large-scale destruction. A smallpox or anthrax attack would make the COVID-19 lockdown, not to mention COVID-19 itself, look like a cakewalk. As the book expresses numerous times, these tiny organisms, if weaponized, are the biological equivalent of a nuclear bomb--with the bonus of not ravaging the physical landscape. Additionally, while nuclear warfare kills instantly if one is hit by the weapon directly, biowarfare will torture victims first no matter where they are when that bomb hits. Most terrifying of all is that smallpox (stunningly contagious--forget six-foot distance and masks) and anthrax (not contagious from person to person but very easily inhaled) can be bio-engineered to be superbugs that resist existing vaccines and treatments. Preston visited a lab at the St. Louis University School of Medicine to show just how easy it is to do such bio-engineering.

The Demon in the Freezer is packed with statistics, memorable details, and dramatic scenes as it loosely traces the history of these diseases and what’s happening now. The dual focus is effective in that Preston hammered home the idea that anthrax and smallpox as weapons are equally able to cause widespread devastation. He painted a full picture of what these viruses look like and how, exactly, they behave, both in transmission and within the body. He showed this in a few tense scenes and a few graphic scenes, but one of the more powerful scenes is about anthrax and is neither tense nor graphic: Preston visited a researcher at the man’s home in Maryland. The researcher led Preston outside, where he demonstrated the nature of anthrax transmission by pumping a puff of baby powder into the air. It’s an unforgettable scene, as few people do not know how finely milled powder stays suspended in the air: The puff explodes in a gentle flurry and is instantly carried on the breeze, expanding as it goes, and then vanishing like steam. Anthrax is that kind of powder, an invisible threat that can travel for miles and also remain potent.

As intriguing as smallpox and anthrax are, there are some drawbacks to the book’s dual focus. There isn’t enough story and information about either organism to warrant a separate book for each, so it makes sense to put both in one; however, whereas The Hot Zone is tightly organized thanks to its singular focus, The Demon in the Freezer has clumsy organization. The smallpox and anthrax sections aren’t uniform in length, and they lack dedicated parts, such as a part one and part two. Instead, in discussion about one disease, attention suddenly shifts to the other for a while, then switches back. Preston gave credit where credit was due by introducing numerous scientists working at the forefront of smallpox and anthrax research but tried to add depth by throwing in some personal life details about a few main ones. These humanizing details aren’t uninteresting, but they appear out of nowhere, breaking the flow with details that are irrelevant and arbitrary. These are paragraphs about such things as the love life of one of the researchers and descriptions, sometimes unflattering, of people’s clothing and physiques. It feels like all description was inserted at an editor’s request--but the effort is so half-hearted and weird that no one ends up fleshed out. The stars of this book are the diseases, and fortunately Preston at least achieved what he set out to do there.

Smallpox and anthrax were abstract to me before reading this book. I also didn’t know how deadly they are, the “-pox” in “smallpox” leading me to believe smallpox isn’t much worse than chickenpox. I associated anthrax with contaminated mail that an unfortunate few occasionally come into contact with. I didn’t understand the mechanics of these diseases as bioweapons. Now I do know. Viruses and bacteria adapt easily, and smallpox and anthrax are out there and being worked with. Biowarfare is a threat. The Demon in the Freezer isn't exactly a know-your-enemy read that empowers--but those who’ve read The Hot Zone will know this about Preston. It’s a captivating and educational real-life horror story.

Update, January 8, 2023: 2022 documentary The Anthrax Attacks: In the Shadow of 9/11 answers a major question about the anthrax attacks that was still being investigated at the time of publishing. show less

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from microscopic infectious agents? Welcome to Mr. Preston’s frightening neighborhood.
Smallpox is one of the diseases that we don't think about much anymore. Just one of the many things that we all got vaccinated for before starting school. We might have learned about the devastation it caused throughout history; how it wiped out several of our Native American tribes when the Europeans came and spread something the tribes how no knowledge of, and if they had, they would have had no way to stop or prevent it. But hey...that was "just a scary story right? I also learned that it was one of the causes of the collapse of the civilizations in South and Central America after the arrival of the conquistadors show more who brought it with them. But that was centuries ago and it's not something to worry about anymore, thanks to the miracles of modern science...right? Wrong! You can scratch that part. Thanks to that same miracle of modern science that took the fear away, it has found a way to resurrect smallpox again.

Biological warfare...that should be "nightmare fodder" for every human on the planet. As the author suggests in his last paragraph...these diseases have become "the new atomic bomb" and asks the question; "is this the new threat of human self-annihilation"? It was interesting that there was such a heated debate over whether or not to preserve smallpox in the lab vs. entirely eliminating it as a species. This has left scientists and public health officials conflicted. On one hand, they wanted to be rid of every last particle of smallpox on Earth so that it would be erased forever. However, they also didn’t know whether hostile countries might have their own hidden stashes, or even some bio-engineered smallpox somewhere, so to actually get rid of our smallpox might leave us at a high disadvantage.

As a person that worked with animals...I worked at a zoo for 28-years...I hated the animal experimentation parts. I've read other books by Richard Preston, and he usually glosses over the animal parts that's carried out during the development of treatments for all these horrible "human" diseases. In this book, he spends a lot more time talking about the emotional implications of "murdering" lesser primates to gain information about smallpox and other horrors. More than enough about that subject.

Unfortunately, as Preston explains, once it had been eradicated...guess what? Surprise! Humans then decided that smallpox would make a really great weapon... especially if it could be created in a country where several labs were already in operation and had the capability to build weapons that could deliver the smallpox particles to hundreds of thousands of people. Preston also discusses the recent anthrax outbreak and mentions that at first the government was concerned there could be smallpox particles hidden among the anthrax spores. Fortunately, this turned out to not be the case.

The most alarming part of the entire book is the part that Preston discusses a "bioengineered smallpox weapon", a biologically "changed" form of smallpox that could easily infect and kill people even if they had been recently vaccinated. Really helped to enforce the idea that humans are, without question, the most dangerous animals on Earth.

This is not what I actually set out to read. The title was intriguing, and I expected a bit more "frozen demon" fiction...silly me. Having read this author before I should have known that he writes "horror" but not the fictional kind. This is an excellent book about a terrifying subject. Smallpox is something all of humanity should understand, so that we know what we are dealing with and why we tried to eradicate it in the first place. The book, though sometimes overly technical, will help people better understand....and will literally scare the "beegees" out of you and do it so much better that anything Stephen King ever thought of doing...and Stephen is pretty darn good at that! It includes an overview of smallpox and its history, its impact on humanity and the terrifying consequences should mankind decide to intentionally bring it back in the form of a weapon. 3 stars...not because it wasn't well written or interesting but simply because the subject and the ramifications are just too horrifying. show less

Preston always delivers a gut wrenching read on the possibilities and probabilities of things we don't really think about, in this case smallpox and biological weapons with a sideline look at anthrax. It is interesting to mull over the 'what if?' and know that as a society we think ourselves safe, but in reality we would have very little chance against a weaponised form of smallpox. After-all, how do you contain something for which we have no natural immunity, immunisations have become ineffective and governments have destroyed current stockpiles since the disease should no longer naturally exist? A frightening thought.

Preston's exploration of Smallpox and its potential threat as a weapon of bio-terrorism is powerful, and still timely (having been published originally in 2002). Through a narrative that reads as smoothly as fiction, and with just enough detail when it comes to history and explanation, he makes a clear case for the fact that smallpox is far more frightening than many threats we hear of more regularly, allowing his book to be all the more powerful because he sets his main focus up against the anthrax scares that were so present in the public mind upon this book's first publication. The message: 'You're afraid of anthrax, but you're worrying about the wrong thing." Of course, this isn't a book built for the scientists who are choosing show more where to focus their grants or funding. This is a book meant for the average person who can't help wondering what bioterrorism could mean, how it could show up, how we can fight it when it does, and whether smallpox is really a thing of the past.

The difficult thing about this book, truthfully, is remembering while reading that Preston is presenting history and fact, because it is so easy to read, and the characters are so well-drawn and clear that this doesn't feel like a book of facts, names, and potentialities--it feels like a story. And, of course, it is, albeit a true one.

There's no doubt that this book has the potential to give readers nightmares if they stop at the wrong moment or allow it to sink into their brains too close to bedtime, but it's worth reading for anyone who wants some insight into the subjects at hand, and it's certainly a book I'd recommend. I'll be looking up more of Preston's work, no doubt. show less