Hot Zone by Richard Preston ~ November Bookclub Online Prediscussion

[JoanK]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

November Book Club Online  Will you join us?

The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story
by Richard Preston

It reads like a detective thriller, but it's a true story--how the Ebola virus was discovered, and what happened when it turned up in a research lab just a few miles from Washington, DC. "When Richard Preston's novel "The Hot Zone" was published in 1995, it was, for many, their first introduction to the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses.  Nearly two decades later, Ebola has infected hundreds of people in three countries across West Africa, in what is considered the worst outbreak in history. As fear over the deadly virus grows, we need a reminder of what we learned so long ago from Preston." British Broadcasting Corporation BBC

DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:

Nov. 1 - 5~  First three chapters--Something in the Forest, Jumper, Diagnosis (Africa, 1980)

 

RELEVANT LINKS:
Mt. Elgon National Park; Mt. Elgon Hotel and Spa;
BBC Ebola Primer;

  

Discussion Leader: PatH

My kindle table of contents reads like this:

Part One. The shadow of Mount Elgon
Part Two The Monkey House
Part Three Smashdown
Part Four Kitum Cave

Main Characters
Glossary
Credits

Looks like almost, but not quite your division. I'll check with you.
No bibliography or credits to written sources, which is odd: he seems to have written it all from interviews. Maybe there weren't any written sources then.
JoanK

[PatH]

I guess my description was a little confusing, Joan.  In the table of contents, both book and Kindle, the book is divided into parts.  Part One is The Shadow of Mount Elgon.  Each part is divided into chapters, which have names.  These aren't listed in the table of contents, but are given in the text.  We're starting with the first three of these, Something in the Forest, Jumper, and Diagnosis.  In the Kindle, you have to watch for the chapter names as they appear in the text.

If anyone doesn't have chapter names at all, let me know and I'll give the last sentence of each.

[ginny]

That's good news. In the paperback I have, the third "part," Smashdown, ends on page 283, which is a heck of a beginning read.

But the first three chapters end with Diagnosis on page 47  in the paperback, and so that's the area we confine our remarks to? We of course can read beyond but we confine our comments to the first 47 pages of the paperback on November 1?

That seems doable, if so. I'm looking forward to this. Thank you for offering  it, Pat.

[PatH]

Yes, that's right, Ginny.  I'm sorry that my first post wasn't clear.  I hope I straightened things out in time so no one is reading 283 pages.

[bellamarie]

I agree, Chapter 1 was difficult for me to get out of my head.  Nov 1 is better for me as well.  Thanks PatH., for the schedule, that gives me an idea how far I can read.

I was listening to the news last night and heard the CDC has come out with yet new guidelines.  They are saying "high risk" should be quarantined for the 21 days.  Governors in many states are on board with quarantine for any person who has worked directly with Ebola patients traveling into the U.S. from West Africa, showing symptoms. 

http://www.nj.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2014/10/cdc_ebola_policy_changes_reject_quarantine_for_most_west_african_travelers.html

This is a very interesting article:

Dr. Beutler, an American medical doctor and researcher, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology in 2011 for his work researching the cellular subsystem of the body’s overall immune system – the part of it that defends bodies from infection by other organisms, like Ebola.

He is currently the Director of the Center for the Genetics of Host Defense at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas – the first U.S. city to treat an Ebola patient and also the first to watch one die from the virus. In an exclusive interview with NJ Advance Media,

“It may not be absolutely true that those without symptoms can’t transmit the disease, because we don’t have the numbers to back that up,” said Beutler, “It could be people develop significant viremia [where viruses enter the bloodstream and gain access to the rest of the body], and become able to transmit the disease before they have a fever, even. People may have said that without symptoms you can’t transmit Ebola. I’m not sure about that being 100 percent true. There’s a lot of variation with viruses.”

In fact, in a study published online in late September by the New England Journal of Medicine and backed by the World Health Organization, 3,343 confirmed and 667 probable cases of Ebola were analyzed, and nearly 13 percent of the time, those infected with Ebola exhibited no fever at all.

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/10/christies_quarantine_policy_attacked_by_aclu_cdc_and_even_the_un_is_embraced_by_2011_nobel_prize_win.html

There seems to be so much controversy, and uncertainty as to the transmitting of the virus. 

I would love to know what Richard Preston feels about this today.  He mentioned he wants to write another book on Ebola, with updated data. 

[PatH]

Thanks for the link, Bellamarie.  I'm not sure just where I stand on the quarantine issue.  Christie made it more difficult for everyone by trying to confine the woman in some really unpleasant setup, which anyone would object to.

Here's an article from this morning's Washington Post about goofs in handling disease outbreaks.  I don't altogether agree with him--I would be less forgiving--but it states the difficulties well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/ebola-smallpox-and-anthrax-show-how-public-health-doctors-err-and-then-respond/2014/10/24/a641f02a-5abc-11e4-8264-deed989ae9a2_story.html

I'd love to know what Preston is thinking too.  I'm hoping he'll come out with a statement.

[bellamarie]

I think Christie had his heart in the right place, wanting to take precautions to protect the people of his state, but, I think he may have gone about it in the wrong way.

I really think everyone is learning as they go.  Steps should have been taken back in March, when this was known, and now it's here and even the CDC is learning they were not prepared as they thought they were. 

[JoanP]

"This week, The New Yorker is publishing Mr. Preston’s latest reporting on the virus, a dispatch about the efforts to sequence its genome intertwined with a narrative about a doctor’s doomed effort to treat the disease on the front lines."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/20/books/the-hot-zone-author-tracks-ebolas-evolution.html?_r=0

Here's the New Yorker article - The Ebola Wars, by Richard Preston in New Yorker, Oct. 27 2014       `

A little too much information, perhaps?

[bellamarie]

If you happen to be reading your book from an iBook on your iPad, the last page of Diagnosis is page 95.  This is where you want to stop.

Thanks for the link JoanP.

[Ella Gibbons]

My book has not come yet.  I couldn't get it at Amazon, they didn't have a hardcover and I cannot read paperbacks anymore.   Need large print anything if I can get it.   I did order a hardback from B&N, which is coming by horse and buggy.

Clop, clop, clop. 

[JoanP]

So glad you are on the way, Ella!  I can hear your hoss  - clip clopping in the distance!

[PatH]

That's great, Ella.  I thought you weren't going to be with us.  Whenever you get it, it's a fast read to catch up.

[Frybabe]

Interesting article. This is what PA is doing. Notice in the article that PA is one of the top destination states for people from West Africa. I am not entirely happy about this. http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/10/pennsylvania_ebola_monitoring_1.html#incart_m-rpt-1

Meanwhile, I get the distinct impression that Kaci Hickox is not self quarantining herself in Maine. I am under the impression that public health safety trumps personal civil rights, but doesn't the government have to declare a public health emergency first? The Feds are unwilling to do this; some of the states, though, are. Hurray for them. Unfortunately for Christie, the quarantine tent that NJ put up seemed a bit hastily put together. I agree with Christie that you can't count on people to self quarantine themselves. How many of these health workers come back with the attitude that they know better than politicians and others (not entirely unwarranted assumption)? However, they ignore the possibility (spelled probability, in my estimation) that they don't know everything about Ebola yet, nor do they care about the psychological effects on an apprehensive population.

What I would like to know is how come Ebola hasn't made an appearance (aside from the infected monkey at Reston) here long ago. Or has it, and we don't know about it?   

[PatH]

JoanP, Thanks for that excellent New Yorker article.  It's good to see what Preston is up to now; I bet we get another book from him soon. 

It's a good description of the battle to treat patients at one African hospital, and how they treated some of the workers who got sick.  The parallel story is the work at Harvard and MIT doing gene sequencing on a large number of patient samples.  (The two institutions were collaborators.)  The virus makes minor mutations rapidly, and they were able to show that the current outbreak started with one person, and has become two distinguishable strains.  They're wading through red tape to import up-to-date samples to see what the current situation is.

[Frybabe]

I just read The New Yorker article. A niece is working at one of the Harvard labs. I doubt it is with that particular one, but I have a call into my sister to find out. This is a little disconcerting.

[Ella Gibbons]

105 people being monitored in PA?   Wow!  I don't know what to think about the release of identity as I know a little about the privacy of health laws; not enough to discuss though.

There's a long article in TIME this week about Ebola which I have not read yet.

The "hoss" must have run into bad weather or had to have new shoes?  Hasn't shown  up yet.

One thing I have always wondered  -  how does a virus mutate?  Is it temperature they encounter?  It sounds like a teenage monster movie when you think about these bugs' nature changing and becoming scarier - horrific.

[PatH]

How does a virus mutate?

Good question, Ella.  The New Yorker article calls it a copying error, which is a good way to think of it.  Genetic material is just a long string of chemicals, and all sorts of random events can change some little bit of the string.  When it duplicates, there could be a copying error.  It could be a cosmic ray, some chemical insult, whatever.  Most mutations wouldn't do anything important.  From what I can read into the article, there isn't any clinical difference between the two strains.  What they worry about is the rare mutation that makes the virus worse.

[Frybabe]

My niece is working at one of the labs at Harvard. She is not working on the Ebola project, but something that has to do with neurons in the brain.

Neither of my sisters are overly concerned about Ebola here. In fact, one has given me the "why are you upset/afraid (an exaggeration on her part)" since I, personally, am not anywhere near Ebola. What an attitude. Because I am interested in and have an opinion I am afraid? I am concerned for public safety, lack of enough knowledge about the Ebola virus, and the extraordinary measures needed to combat it. I do believe in erring on the safe side until more is known rather than having a caviler attitude about it. Caution, common sense, and interest in the subject are not the same thing as being afraid. So what do we have? We have three groups of people:  those who are totally unconcerned/uninterested, those who panic, and the majority of us (I hope) that keep an eye on developments and are interested but not panicky.

Sorry about the rant.

Oh, my other sister, the nurse, read The Hot Zone when it came out. She also read The Plague (sorry, didn't get the author's name). She liked that non-fiction book better for the information about viruses. I'm thinking she didn't have the entire title because I can't locate a non-fiction work by just that name. However, I did find an interesting title that may be relevant to the public and political actions and reactions to a plague here today, Plague, Fear, and Politics in San Francisco's Chinatown by Guenter Risse.

[PatH]

It's annoying to be misinterpreted like that, isn't it, Frybabe.  I'm like you; I'm totally not worried for my personal risk, which is zero, but very interested in everything about the disease itself (after all, I'm a science nerd) and concerned that the fight will be mishandled so that we don't win while we still can.

Preston doesn't give us as much information as I'd like about the viruses.  Less was known in '95, dunno how complete his reporting is for then.  We can find sources to fill in, like that New Yorker article.  He also plays up the drama of the course of the disease to the maximum; he's describing the worst it can get.  I sort of wish he'd toned it down a bit.

[bellamarie]

Frybabe,   

Caution, common sense, and interest in the subject are not the same thing as being afraid.

I got the same reaction from a friend yesterday when all I said is, I was reading a book about Ebola, with my online book club.   Her response, "I just don't get why everyone is so afraid, they did the same thing with HIV."  I told her I am not afraid, I am interested in learning about the virus, and concerned we are doing all we can to contain it, so it can not become an epidemic.  It was a non subject with her.  I think your three categories were pretty accurate. I think I would have included a fourth group, those who want to politicize this as well.

I am in the group of wanting to be informed, but no reason for panic.

[ginny]

I find  his hyperbole interesting and was fascinated to find he's Douglas Preston's brother (of Preston and Childs)...Relic, Reliquary...the writing style is very similar.

[bellamarie]

I personally was very upset with the attitude of  Kaci Hickox.  She refuses to quarantine herself, with as far as I am concerned a reckless attitude, assuming because her fever is gone, she is risk free of the virus.  I pray she is, but with people like her refusing to cooperate, it opens the door for others to resist to be quarantined.  I was listening to the legal argument if she has the right to refuse due to the safety of the country, and from what Judge Napolitano cites civil liberties law, states the mandated procedure must be in place, and anyone traveling to West Africa then is aware that if they go and when they come back, they will be mandated to be quarantined the 21 days.  Because the procedure has NOT yet been put in place, she legally can refuse.  The other side of the argument is the constitutional law, putting others at risk.

[Frybabe]

I've been interested in that development too, Bellamarie. To me, her attitude seems arrogant to say the least.

[JoanK]

GINNY: " he's Douglas Preston's brother (of Preston and Childs)...Relic, Reliquary...the writing style is very similar."

That's interesting: wonder if he had his brother's help. The writing is very good-- he draws you in (as does his brother).

[JoanK]

I've lost this post twice. Hope third time's a charm.

I read  one of the books discussed in a review posted a few days ago (thank you) "Ebola" by David Quammen. Interesting to get a different perspective: I'll mention in more detail later. Since it's up to date, he discusses a few cases in the US too recent for Preston's book. But surprisingly few.

As the review says, he criticizes Preston's lurid descriptions of symptoms, saying they are exaggerated and in some cases inaccurate. The massive bleeding so vividly described does not happen in all cases.

[jane]

The discussion for the HOT Zone is now open!

Please go to:

http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=4488.msg236477#msg236477

This prediscussion is now locked.