Hot Zone by Richard Preston- November Book Club Online

[JoanP]

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:

PART ONE: The Shadow of Mount Elgon
Nov. 1 - 5~  First three chapters--Something in the Forest, Jumper, Diagnosis (Africa, 1980)
Nov. 6-9~  Next three chapters--A Woman and a Soldier, Project Ebola, Total Immersion (Maryland, 1983)
Nov 10-13~ Last three chapters--Ebola River(Africa, 1976), Cardinal(Africa, 1987), Going Deep

PART TWO: The Monkey House
Nov. 14-17~First seven chapters--Reston, Into Level Three, Exposure, Thanksgiving, Medusa, The First Angel, The Second Angel (Maryland, Virginia, 1989)
Nov. 17-?~Last six chapters--Chain of Command, Garbage Bags, Space Walk, Shoot-out, The Mission, Reconnaissnce

For Your Consideration
Nov. 14-?

1. As you follow the search for answers at Reston and Fort Detrick, what things did people do wrong?  What did they do right?
2. What did you think of the strange techniques needed for electron microscopy?
3. Could you have faced three weeks in the Slammer?  What makes it so hard to tolerate?




RELEVANT LINKS:
Prediscussion
BBC Ebola Primer
Mt. Elgon National Park

 

Discussion Leader: PatH

[PatH]

his "diamond knife with the sharpest cutting edge on earth."  Didn't you fear for him when you read that?

JoanP

I feared for Tom Geisbert, but not because of the diamond knife.  They're tiny; the sample he was cutting was the size of a toast crumb.  It's an incredible preparation.  He was probably cutting slices of the thickness of 50 or 100 nanometers.  A nanometer would be a thousandth of a thousandth of the thickness of the toast crumb.  That's why the knife is so expensive, not just the diamond, but the accuracy.

Here's a picture of a ribbon of slices hanging down from a knife, with someone starting to remove them with an eyelash on the end of a stick.  That brown curve at the purple end of the stick is the eyelash.  Geisbert's knife might very well have been bigger, but still not big enough to make a major wound.

http://www.embl.de/services/core_facilities/em/equipment/cryo_ultramicrotomes/

Thanks for the heading.

[JoanP]

Thanks for the election microscope! Pat.

Just finished the rest of The Monkey House.  Will just say -
Don't decide too quickly that Jerry Jaax isn't pertinent to the story!

[PatH]

I think it's pretty funny that the people who can engineer such knives can't manage to engineer something that beats a human eyelash.

[MaryPage]

Our local news here in the Washington, D.C.- Baltimore metropolitan area is leading with the latest Ebola news every night still, as is the evening national news on ABC and NBC, which are the two channels I watch every day without fail.  I see no reason to believe there is a vast conspiracy on the part of doctors, nurses, other medical personnel, the media and the governments many involved agencies, not to mention the many charitable groups and non-profit, non-governmental agencies and the foreign media and the many foreign governments involved to keep any information or data from the American public about Ebola.  It just is not POSSIBLE, and there is no reason for it.
And yes, The Washington Post and our Baltimore Sun and Annapolis's own The Capital have all been running daily updates.  I also find it in the weekly news magazines.  On the whole, I have perceived no withholding of information.  With thousands of deaths in Africa from this outbreak, perhaps the photo of hundreds of caskets were from there.  Or it may have been taken at a casket makers worksite?

[Ella Gibbons]

I finisihed the book last night and I must say the second half of the book was all drama, all suspence, hard to put down.  This author should be writing fiction because this is what the book reads like; perhaps his brother gave him some help here?

We have to be very concerned and very puckered if it is of the same ilk as ebola," C J. said.

I have never heard that word before?

But to read of all the agencies hopping around Washington, tryling to decide who has the most power and the capability to act in accordance wth a threat was interesting reading.  I'm sure it goes on all the time; the latest example might be immigration.  Although not a threat it is a big issue and needs both power and capability.

I don't know that if I were thirsty or hungry if I could eat termites as C.J. did on a trip to Africa, could you? (pg. 172)

[PatH]

Just, maybe, I might be able to eat termites if I hadn't had any food for days, but it would be a close call.

"Puckered" or "pucker factor" is defined some chapters back.  It means "afraid": "This is a military slang term that refers to a certain tightening sensation in the nether regions of the body, in response to fear."  I find it distracting.  The thought of a bunch of military brass sitting around a table being "puckered" cracks me up.

[PatH]

Yes, it's real drama now.  The drama is there, in the facts, but Preston knows how to tell it right.  In this section, we've defined the problem, had our turf wars, amassed our forces, and planned our campaign.  Now for the battle.

[ginny]

This being the 18th, I see I'm totally behind again! We're to go thru Reconnaissance. I wanted to say Pedln what a super post and I wanted to say something about your masterful list (one does need a score card)... I'm glad to have it.  And Pearson has found that Jerry Jaxx plays an important part. I wonder if it has anything to do with his brother's death,  tho? We must read and find out!

To me there are tons of red herrings, yet. Strings not yet tied up. But we're used to them being tied up. Pearson said earlier on she just knew when she read XXX that whatever it was what was going to happen. Me, too.  The foreshadowing was quite strong. But now we have a lot of loose ends, one after the other. I am interested to see if they all are explained or something is left hanging for Book II.

hysteria,  no kidding! PLAGUE? Is that different from that ...what is that strange disease one gets from rats, where rats have been?  Hantavirus? (We can see what I know about the Black Plague!)

 I would not be eating termites and it appears the gentleman liked the taste and had them often. Alllll rightie then.

On the question on the Slammer in the heading, I must admit I don't understand it, at all. People go crazy. But this is not a prison, right? I have heard that people go nuts in solitary confinement. Surely the people in the Slammer can have something to read? Something to watch?  TV? Something to occupy their minds. Writing utensils. A contemplative time? No? Something to look out on? No?

Why not? They are not incarcerated, right? This is a digital age, right? An IPad sprayed with lysol?
 A new IPad which could be incinerated along with the rest of the detritus?

The gorilla which scared me half to death was named Massa, which died at the age of 54  January 1, 1985 after eating birthday cake.

He weighed, get this, 400 pounds. Big big thing. I can see him splayed out on that glass now.  And I mean he came from across that huge space to do it. But I don't think it was glass. I think it was probably several shatter proof layers of Plexiglas in their new monkey house exhibit. Plexiglas had been patented by the Rohm and Haas company, whose US headquarters were in Philadelphia, and my father worked for them his entire career.  I always thought that was ironic: what a good commercial for Plexiglas.

[bellamarie]

MaryJane,

I see no reason to believe there is a vast conspiracy on the part of doctors, nurses, other medical personnel, the media and the governments many involved agencies, not to mention the many charitable groups and non-profit, non-governmental agencies and the foreign media and the many foreign governments involved to keep any information or data from the American public about Ebola.  It just is not POSSIBLE, and there is no reason for it.

With all due respect, where do I begin to refute this.....after reading these last few chapters it is, and always has been possible for the government to hide, deceive, deflect, and control what the American public is to know.  Transparency has always been a problem with administrations, especially with the present one, NSA, IRS, Benghazi, Fast and Furious, to name a few, and most recent, Gruber the Obamacare architect saying, "Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical to get for the thing (Obamacare) to pass. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not."

Now here in this book we see: pg. 198 "Meanwhile, there was the larger question of politics."  pg. 199 "General Russell was afraid the Army's lawyers would tell him that it could not, and should not, be done, so he answered the legal doubts with these words: "A policy of moving out and doing it, and asking forgiveness afterwards, is much better than a policy of asking permission and having it denied.  You never ask a lawyer for permission to do something.  We are going to do the needful, and the lawyers are going to tell us why it's legal."
pg. 214 "C.J. inspected the bags__it was a relief to see that the monkeys were double-bagged or triple-bagged-and decided to take them back to Fort Detrick and worry about health laws afterward.

I am appalled at how many times protocols have been broken, experts have been exposed to the virus, they are not transparent with chain of command, putting others at high risk.  Media controls what the public gets, and the administration controls what the media gets.  Always has been and always will be.  Look at how the atomic bomb in Oak Ridge, Tenn. was kept under wraps from media and the public.  Newspapers, internet, twitter, social sites, newscasters/reporters, radio, television, even White House staff, are all given ONLY what the administration wants it to have.  And, when the leaks come out, it's always deny, deny, deny.

It's all about politics.......anything is possible in the White House!

[MaryPage]

We are actually talking past each other here, Bellamarie.
I do not question our governments wish to maintain secrecy about many, many things, and most especially those which impact the safety of our nation.
What I am pointing out here in the matter of Ebola is that there are TOO MANY PEOPLE belonging to too many different arenas of our society involved in this epidemic.  When you get, as I was trying to illustrate, a whole bunch of foreign governments, a myriad of the World Wide Media, thousands of health workers from many sectors of the globe, and many, many different private (non-governmental) organizations involved in either conducting the fight to contain the spread of this virus or reporting on the latest incidences of spreading, it is just flat out impossible to even give so much as a seconds consideration to the matter of attempting to do anything in secrecy.
One of the only ways in which anything that really matters has been carried out in secrecy is to follow the First Rule, which is that only those with an absolute need to know should be involved, and they should be carefully isolated, if at all possible.
This rabbit has long since jumped out of the hat and run away!

[bellamarie]

Thank you MaryPage, for your response.  I have come to a point where I have so little trust in anything to do with politics, government, administrations, military, media, foreign governments, and health care workers that nothing seems impossible to me anymore.  My point made earlier on was, I have not heard anything on my news stations since the election took place about Ebola.  I watch ABC, NBC, Fox News and also CBS and I am not getting anything.  I knew nothing of the doctor who just recently died of the Ebola virus this past weekend.  Maybe your local news channels are different.  Good Morning America has turned into a pop culture/entertainment program.  The Today Show with Matt Lauer has become a bit of a joke, it is so biased, but I must say CBS has stuck with some worthy news, just not heard anything lately on Ebola, not even on Fox News, which was accused of fear mongering for reporting on it so much.

The need to know theory, over centuries has truly become better known as a cover up.  I think we have to agree to disagree, because we have differences of trust levels where this is concerned.  I never used to be such a cynic, but after reading so many books from years gone by, and being more aware of what goes on in politics in the last decades, I have lost trust and faith in the "need to know for the safety of our nation theory."

Just as some here have questioned why Preston has chosen to write this book the way he has, and if he is being biased in how he is presenting his information, I question the people involved in dealing with Ebola today.  I must say this, as quickly as Ebola became known with Mr. Duncan, and the others who contracted it here in the U.S., it seems to be contained and that is a good thing.  

Have a good night!   

[Ella Gibbons]

Viruses are frightening things aren't they?   I just never knew.  We often rather threw out the phrase of a prolonged cough or cold by saying it's probably a virus she picked up.    But when you read that a virus can turn off, die,  and then when come they comes in contact with a lliving system, they switch on and multiply.

In other words, they never die - they are always lurking and waiting for a cell to fasten onto, is this the way you read this? (p.178)  Antibiotics don't kill them?   Nothing kills them?

I agree with GINNY, I don't understand about people going crazy in the slammer for all the reasons she stated. 

[pedln]

Thoughts and ramblings through all the readings here.

My comments about Preston's style are half tongue-in-cheek, but I have enjoyed his writing and have found his personalizations useful and worth while.  But throughout my reading I've thought "this guy all but tells us when they their teeth"  and then by golly HE DID.

Joe McCormick comes across as a real S.O.B., but you have to admit, a very feisty and gutsy one.  Even his not-so-best friend, C. j. Peters admired him for his decisiveness and his tenacity if not for anything else.

JoanK, you're our mystery expert here.  Does this last part here make you think of the turf wars we so often hear about in crime novels?  Local police departments up against the FBI or the DEA or State troopers?  Here we have the ARmy vs. the  CDC and to a lesser degree, the private corporation vs. the Army.

Do you think this was a big CF (I don't remember the exact words)?  In Puerto Rico we used to say "que revolu" or in other words, a mess.?

One thing I do applaud, and that is the compromise made by the ARmy and CDC -- animals for the Army, humans for CDC.

We haven't finished the book yet, but one thing that I had never thought of with the Army was the degree of specialization, medically and scientifically, and I would assume in a lot of other categories also.

[MaryPage]

OK, Ella, no expert here, but here is MY take on a virus after reading up on them hungrily ever since THE HOT ZONE came out:
A virus is not a life form as we learn about in Biology.  It is neither plant nor animal.  It is neither part of Botany nor Zoology.  Bacteria are of the animal kingdom and fungi of the plant, but viruses stand alone.  These three constitute our worst enemies, but whereas bacteria can also be our best friends and our saviors (small s), and we love some members of the fungi world, viruses are the deadliest of our foe.  (Unless, of course, we very sensibly count man himself.)
It CAN be "killed," but we must think differently about what that means.  If you kill any form of the animal kingdom, you still have a body to dispose of.  If you kill a plant, you still have something of it left to dispose of.
You can "kill" a virus with chlorine (Clorox) and you have nothing.  Nada.  You have erased the virus.
"Dead" viruses do not return to life.  They no longer exist.  You can forget about them, but hey, there are billions upon billions upon trillions and gazillions more out there.  There are a lot more of them than of us by unthinkable numbers.
And what is more, we cannot see them!
You are correct that viruses require invading a living cell in order to multiply.  There are viruses that attack only plant life!
We know now WHAT they are and how to protect ourselves.  We do not yet have them anywhere nearly completely understood.  I am thinking we need to come to understand how these infinitesimally small snippets of discarded RNA can function at all.  Once we learn the how and why of THAT, we should solve the problem.  Maybe?
Wash your hands!  Wash your hands!  Wash your hands!
While viruses can only copy themselves in a living cell, they can last for a while between cells.

[bellamarie]

pedln, 

Thoughts and ramblings through all the readings here.

LOLOL  Maybe we are starting to have effects from too much reading about Marburg and Ebola.  I understand it can effect the brain and cause you to be delirious.  

The best I can say as far as the virus is concerned, it never goes away, once you have contracted it and survive you are not able to get it again, it jumps to a new host and amplifies.  So far in this book, there is no known living creature they can say is the original host body.  As best as it is summed up so far is......pg. 239 

"Nancy settled into bed with Jerry.  She said to him, "I have a gut feeling they're not going to be able to contain the virus in that one room."  She told him she was worried that it could be spreading into the other rooms through the air.  That virus was just so damned infective she didn't see how it would stay in one room.  Something that Gene Johnson had once said to her came to her mind:  "We don't really know what Ebola has done in the past, and we don't know what it might do in the future."

[JoanP]

Ella - if the only reason I found myself in the slammer was to spend some time in solitary confinement for whatever reason, I think I could get through it with the knowledge I'd be out soon...sooner or later.
But to be quarantined...to wait and see if I came down with one of these deadly viruses...I think I would lose it as time went by.  The "what ifs"...what if I'm so hot everyone is afraid to come near me...to help?  What if I'm left in here, where I'm no danger to anyone?

[JoanP]

Pedln - I can forgive Joe McCormick ANYTHING once he made the decision to let the plane leave without him and return that infected  village in Sudan ...knowing that he might have the virus in his blood, and then working to help other Ebola victims all the while

The two who sniffed the tube continuing the virus - knew of the possibility they had somehow contracted it, but so dreaded the Slammer,  they told no one...nor did they quarantine themselves elsewhere.  I found that difficult to understand.

[JoanP]

For some reason my iPad is freezing up in the middle of a post - forcing me to lose the post and start again.  Have you experienced this?  I hadn't - until now.  Will do short posts - before losing the thought - again!

Have you noticed there is no mention of Nancy Jaax's quick (and careless?) hands in these chapters?  She works calmly, slowly, deliberately, changing her gloves often as she dissects these hot monkeys.  She must have learned from that bloody-hand experience in Fr. Detrick with Gene Johnson.  

But Preston repeats here that Jerry has not recovered from the loss of his brother. Understandable.  It was a terrible murder.  Why does Preston repeat it again here, unless to show that a depressed man is leading the mission into the monkey house - the same building where his wife is working!  I'm as curious as you are to see how (if?) the depression has an impact in the coming chapters once the mission is underway.  (If you have finished the book, please don't give this away! )

[MaryPage]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus

Those of you reading this book for the very first time and coming to it with perhaps very little information previously about viruses should be just about ready to learn more, and so I suggest using your search engines.  The above is a good start.  Some facts I just love:

virus is the Latin word for poison.

We knew nothing at all about them until 1892.

We did not see one until 1931.

We have learned just about everything we know to date about them in the latter half of the 20th century!

We know that there are millions of different viruses, and we have identified only a few thousand of these.

We still have only theories, no proof or definite knowledge, of what they are all about.

[ginny]

The "quick, nervous hands" continues to irritate me. I have been told the same thing. People don't change. Perhaps she tries now to be more careful? But if she is a person with these quick nervous movements,  I am willing to bet she still has them.

As you say, Pearson,  perhaps she is trying to calm down and be more careful. Perhaps she thinks before trying to open a can with a knife...when you think about that  incident, what character traits  do you see in her?

I see a person who wants what they want then. Right then. No can opener? I shall hack it open. I want it open. The idea that I could cook something else, borrow a can opener from a neighbor, go to the store and buy a new one,  is not for me: I want it NOW! That is sort of the determined type of person I see. What do you all see?


I am willing to bet anybody in  here a lunch that  she is absolutely no different from when she started because that's a character trait that would be hard to stifle. WHY he has stopped harping on  it, if he has, I don't know. I need to read on.

MaryPage, I am new to viruses but Wikipedia would not be a place I wanted to learn about them, with all due respect. It's a cess pit of misinformation. (My opinion obviously but borne out many many times).

[MaryPage]

Oh, I agree with you Ginny;  about Wikipedia, that is.  But so far, I have found nothing errant about the information they offer re viruses.  But a search will bring you many thousands of sites to visit.

I still say each of you would find VIRUS HUNTER by C.J. Peters, the doctor in The Hot Zone, to be as thrilling an adventure into this planet full of viruses as has ever, to date, been written.  And, again, every word is true, only this time the teller is a doctor who has spent his LIFE on these viruses, and is now 74 years old and still studying and teaching and lecturing and being interviewed and advising.  I would venture to say he is now most definitely one of this globe's experts, if not THE expert!

The book will take you all around the world!

[PatH]

I certainly wouldn't have opened that can with a knife, but going to a store to buy a can opener wouldn't have been an option for Nancy.  It was suppertime, the children were hungry, and Jerry was out of town, so she would have had to bundle the hungry children in the car and take them with her.  Surely she had something that wasn't in a can she could have substituted.

MaryPage, I am definitely going to read Virus Hunter; it's just my kind of thing.  Thanks for finding it.  It's going to have to wait its turn behind the other books I've already gotten out for this discussion, though.

[PatH]

I read a lot of science books when I was growing up.  One was Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters (I presume Peters deliberately echoed the title in his title).    Another, very quirky one, was Rats, Lice, and History, by microbiologist Hans Zinsser.  It's supposed to be a biography of typhus, but he doesn't even get there until halfway through the book.  He wanders all over the place, talking about how diseases have changed history, determined the outcome of battles, appeared and disappeared, etc, all in a very convoluted style, full of literary references.  I suspect it's totally unreadable now, the style dated, the references obscure, and the science 80 years out of date, but it was a good introduction to the problems of fighting diseases.

The first page of this article describes it well:

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/11/3/pdfs/ad-1103.pdf

[bellamarie]

After this book, I will be taking a break from Ebola books.  This book has really unsettled me in so many ways.  I am glad I am reading it, because it's a great way to be informed, but I am just frustrated with all the knowledge.  Does that make any sense at all?

Maybe it's because of coming off of reading The Girls of Atomic City, going right into this one, learning more things that cause me pause and lack of trust, and safety.  I agree with Sir Francis Bacon, "Knowledge is Power", but it's what we do with that power that is tricky.

[MaryPage]

Oh, Bellamarie, I know so well the emotions you are describing.  And yes, I think it is hard for all humans, and most especially mothers and grandmothers who spend more time fretting about the futures ahead of the children and grandchildren they will leave behind than do most men.  All of the many threats to their well being and safety in the decades ahead.  We start when they are born and worry about their feeding schedules, their shots, when they will turn over, sit up, walk, get potty trained, learn to talk, learn to tie their shoes, manage on their own in kindergarten, drive the family car on their own, handle themselves in college, and so on and on.  We find so very many things in our very ordinary everyday lives to imagine them victims of, to add on such real life items as nuclear attacks, biological attacks, terrorist shootings in public places, rampant viruses or bacteria epidemics becomes unbearable.

Still, I do feel we owe it to ourselves and the overall family and community well being to read what the experts have to tell us in laymen's terms.  Why do I stress this despite a sense of burnout and wanting to dive into an escapist novel instead?  Because I feel knowledge brings a sense of empowerment and engenders much less panic in the long run.  When we truly KNOW our enemy, we are achieving more than half the list of requirements to ward off their attacks.  This is my true belief:  we are endowed with the stuff to enable us to rise up and meet the foe and beat them with our higher intellects, and this is the challenge we are born to and the measurement of who we are.

At my great age, I have watched many presidents, and have seen every single one of them, and most especially the two-termers, age at from 2 to 3 times the normal rate.  Look at pictures of George W. Bush being sworn in for the first time, and photos of his last State of the Union address.  Now look at B. Obama's swearing in and a photo taken this week.  The stress of what they know is a killer for any human being.  The rest of us own much shorter lists of worries and knowledge!

[hysteria2]

Unfortunately the panic button has been activated in the US. I just read tonight that fear of ebola has surpassed the fear of heart disease and cancer. The odds of anyone dying in this country from ebola are extremely low. As someone put it, more people have been married to Kim Kardashian than have died of ebola. More people have died in this country from bubonic plague than have died from ebola. More people have died from the hantavirus than have died from ebola. OK, you get the picture. Yes, ebola is something to respect. Precautions should be taken. Travel to areas where the disease is prevalent should not be undertaken lightly. But I am dismayed by this country's reaction to the disease. I think it says more about the intelligence of Americans than it does about the threat of the disease. It's not a pretty picture.

In answer to your question about plague and hantavirus, Ginny, they are two separate disease. The hantavirus is a newer disease, but more deadly than plague, simply because we know less about it. New Mexico seems to be unfortunate in that both diseases have done pretty well here. People contract hantavirus by inhaling particles of deer mouse droppings. That isn't is hard to do as one might think. People who get the sudden urge to clean out an old shed my go in there unprotected, and inadvertently inhale particles from mouse droppings. It affects the respiratory system, and until treatment became effective, it was 100% fatal. All our patients in NM go to UNM Hospital because they are set up to deal with it. The trick is getting it diagnosed in time. Plague (bubonic) has been around for a very long time. People contract it from fleas, usually by handling a dead or dying rodent. However, cats and dogs can get plague the same way people do, so we have to watch our animals carefully.

[MaryPage]

Precisely!  And yes, the crazy things being said reflect on the state of our overall intelligence and ability to logically analyze situations and relate them to the world around us.

I think you are especially one who would enjoy VIRUS HUNTER, but then again, if you live in New Mexico you have probably already read it, as Doctor Peters starts off Chapter I with his being one of the very first to be called out there to the "new" killer disease breaking out in the Navajo dwellings back in 1993, and he tells us of the frantic rush to try and find out what it was.  Then he tells of the very long and fascinating history of the virus, which is named for a river in China.  They did not know what it WAS centuries ago, but what the tribal medicine men and healers told them (they had no written language, but memorized their history by oral tradition, the way we did thousands of years ago) was that every x number of years over the centuries, whenever there was an especially robust harvest of pine nuts, the deer mice population multiplied hugely, and strangely, people died with the same symptoms, and BINGO!  The medical team sent out there guessed (correctly) where the resevoir for this killer virus was.

[bellamarie]

hysteria2,

But I am dismayed by this country's reaction to the disease. I think it says more about the intelligence of Americans than it does about the threat of the disease. It's not a pretty picture.

With all due respect, I just don't think this is a fair statement.  This is the second time this week I have heard the American people's intelligence come into question.  Gruber felt Americans were stupid, and so transparency with Obamacare was not necessary, and now we are questioned for having fear with an unknown killing virus in our country, when just days before the first case came to our country our president went on national television and said:

"First and foremost, I want the American people to know that our experts, here at the CDC and across our government, agree that the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low. "

"Now, here’s the hard truth:  In West Africa, Ebola is now an epidemic of the likes that we have not seen before.  It’s spiraling out of control.  It is getting worse.  It’s spreading faster and exponentially.  Today, thousands of people in West Africa are infected.  That number could rapidly grow to tens of thousands.  And if the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected, with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us.  So this is an epidemic that is not just a threat to regional security -- it’s a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic.  That has profound effects on all of us, even if we are not directly contracting the disease."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/16/remarks-president-ebola-outbreak

Americans reacted because of the inaction of the people who are suppose to be reassuring us they are in control of things.  The way the president, CDC, health officials, FFA, and all the others who are experts and hold positions to keep us safe reacted and showed lack of intelligence, safety, caution, and knowledge, it gave Americans due cause to be afraid of Ebola once it entered the U.S.  We had so much controversy it felt like no one seemed to really know protocol, proper containment, or even how or if to put a ban on those entering the U.S. from the infected areas, who had worked directly with dying Ebola patients in Liberia,  Sierra Leone and in Guinea. We were looking for reassurance and leadership and there was very little.  Once Duncan died in the Dallas hospital, the CDC was scrambling around trying to figure out how the nurse got infected.  They changed the protocol on how to dress when treating patients.  Dr, Freidman head of the CDC handled things so poorly, Obama had to appoint a Czar, and no one has heard from Dr. Friedman since, or the Czar, for that matter.  

Americans are more intelligent than we are given credit for.  

Reading this book, I can assess the same type of situations were happening back when this first broke out in 1976.  Just look at how badly these experts in The Hot Zone were handling things. Dead infected monkeys being put into garbage bags and driven around in the trunk of a car, samples of infected serum sent over in cups, meat from infected monkeys sent by courier in tin foil.  Possible infected people working directly with infected patients and monkeys not being contained.  They didn't want to be put in the slammer.  That reminded me of the nurse refusing to be contained just recently.  The arrogance, and risks, these people took, possibly putting Americans in harm's way, was incredible.  Maybe they got lucky, and it did not cause an outbreak, but who were they to decide to be so careless, and roll the dice for possibly thousands of lives?  Ughhhh..... Maybe some of our experts today, should have been reading these books we are, they could of learned what to do, and what NOT to do.

[PatH]

There are a number of examples of rule-breaking in this story, some justified, some not.  Jahrling and Geisbert were wrong to hide their exposure.  The worst examples of bad sample handling were not done by the Army, but by Dan Dalgard, the veterinarian at Reston.  He's the one who sent the samples wrapped in tinfoil, and when Jahrling got them, he promptly called Dalgard and told him how to send samples.  It was also Dalgard who gave them the dead monkeys in garbage bags.  Peters and Nancy Jaax were appalled when they saw this casual packing, but what could they do?  They didn't have any authority over Dalgard, and had had trouble coaxing him to cooperate.  If they had sent the monkeys back for better packing, Dalgard would probably just have told them to go away.  They could have done whatever was needed to get official authority to take the samples, a search warrant or whatever, but that would have taken time, and the monkeys would rapidly decompose in the meantime, and it would insure poor cooperation from then on.

At this point the Army is working as rapidly as they can, to figure out just what is going on with the monkeys, and how to deal with the problem quickly, before humans are endangered.

[JoanP]

My heart goes out to Dan Dalgard.  As Preston portrays him, a good-hearted man, with the well-being of the monkeys foremost in his mind.  He just didn't have the experience to handle an Ebola situation.  But who did?  I remember the author mentioning some of the characters in the book were given other names.  I hope Dan Dalgard was one of them? So much blame is placed at this feet.  Does anyone remember that?

[JoanP]

The tension in the room must have been unbearable - as the CDC and the Army discuss the responsibility for the Reston monkey house.  Preston writes "the CDC is the federal agency with the Congressional mandate to control human disease.  This is its lawful job.  The Army doesn't have a mandate to fight virusus on American soil BUT it has the capablility and the expertise to do it."

I was especially interested in General Russell's opinion:

" This was a job for soldiers operating under a chanin of command....there would be a need for people trained in biohazard work. They would have to be young, without families, willing to risk their lives...They would have to be ready to die."

Reading this made me think of the soldiers we've sent to West Africa.  While I am aware they are not working with Ebola patients directly, they are going into infected areas - and surely must have received some sort of training to protect themselves from infection - to know the signs of the disease.  Are they next going to Sierra Leone, does anyone know?  And are they "young, without families, willing to risk their lives?" 
Do any of you know more about these several thousands of young men sent to West Africa?

[pedln]

Dalgard seems a bit of an inigma to me.  He's a doctor of vet. medicine, his specialty is primates.  When the Army diagnosed the monkey illness he said he had never heard of ebola.  That kind of surprised me.  Was he familiar with Marburg?  I can't remember.  He was not in charge of The Monkey HOuse, but was, as described earlier by Preston "on call."  His office was on Leesburag Pike and he was employed by Hazelton Corning.  Just what was his position?  What were his normal duties before the monkey explosion.  And I wondered also if he had a private practice on the side. 

At the same time, he showed great concern for the monkeys, checking and tending them instead of spending time on his favorite hobby of clock-fixing.

Is it fair to compare and expect from him the same concern and reactions as the Army doctors and vets who specialize in viruses.  He is not a Gene Johnson (below -- will add to my chart)


Gene Johnson – civilian biohazard expert; in charge of Ebola research program at the Institute; deathly afraid of Ebola. Mapped Kitum Cave in 1986.  1988 – persuaded Army to sponsor  U.S. –Kenya expedition searching  for viruses in Kitum Cave.  He considered the expedition a failure because they didn’t find anything and had to euthanize healthy monkeys.

[MaryPage]

Toward the end of VIRUS HUNTER, Doctor Peters gives another complete rundown, from his perspective obviously, not as a reporter (as we have in Preston), but as a participant, and all the same people are involved.  I think you will be interested, as the way different people relate the same story is always interesting.

Dr. Peters writes of worrying about our hospital and medical personnel lacking the training and experience needed to treat patients with these dread viruses.  He wrote in 1997, and foresaw the very difficulties those nurses had in taking care of the Ebola patient in Dallas.  A brief class or an even briefer telling is not a sufficient safeguard, and you cannot count on people reading handouts and such like;  there must be practicing with the equipment over and over until employees can prove their full expertise.  But the hospitals complain that all of these precautions will bankrupt them.  Administration's eye always goes to the bottom line and winds up taking a Big Gamble with lives.  What they are really doing is hoping such a virus will never come to THEIR institution!

[pedln]

An interesting interview with Dan Dalgard (April 2013) -- actually a transcript of his comments made to someone.


Dalgard Interview

[hysteria2]

With all due respect, I just don't think this is a fair statement.  This is the second time this week I have heard the American people's intelligence come into question.

Bellamarie, with all due respect, I stand by my statement. Right before the election FOX and right wing talk radio sought to gain political advantage by using this terrible illness to invoke fear in the American people and discredit President Obama and his administration. People hear on TV and radio that this is something to be deathly afraid of. They pay no attention to the actual numbers. (Having been in healthcare for 30+ years, it does not surprise me at all the the ER sent Mr. Duncan home the first time with antibiotics. This happens in ERs all across the country very frequently. It is not uncommon for a woman with chest pain to be sent home because the myth that premenopausal women don't have heart attacks persists. ERs are so crowded, and the staff has to see as many patients as possible in a short period of time. The second time he was admitted he was properly cared for; however, the disease was so far advanced there was no turning back. We may never know how the 2 nurses became infected. There may have been a break in protocol. Clearly ebola is a disease we have never seen before in our ERs and ICUs. Healthcare personnel had to learn a great deal in a very short period of time. Great progress has been made, but until the disease is eradicated, vigorous research and careful and through monitoring and treatment must be the goal. The news media needs to act responsibly and must report the news without inciting fear. Hospitals and doctors learned very quickly how to contain and treat ebola victims. That is why the doctor in NY and the journalist who was treated in Nebraska survived. (There are other survivors as well who were successfully treated in the US.)  That is why the two nurses from Dallas survived. It was very unfortunate that two governors who had no background in healthcare or epidemiology attempted to quarantine a healthy nurse. That just served to spread more panic unnecessarily. The administration is correct in their statement that travel bans are unnecessary and may be detrimental to the control of the disease. So back to the premise that Americans are lacking in intelligence in this matter. They hear bits and pieces on the news, which is often politically biased depending upon which network they get their news from. Most lay people don't even know the difference between a bacteria and a virus. But they are afraid. So much so that ebola has displaced heart disease and cancer on the list of health scares. There is nothing worse than panic among people who don't have all the facts. The American people have a role in this as well. It is their duty to be proactive and research the disease on their own. So many people think that if they see something in a newspaper or on TV, then it must be true. If you compare our public school system with that of 50 years ago, you will see that learning today is quite different. Many students today do not have the same level of knowledge that their counterparts in the past had. The quality of our education system has declined, and students spend excessive time watching TV and playing video games, with little guidance from their parents. Colleges and universities lament that incoming students are woefully unprepared to succeed in college level classes. Unfortunately, like it or not, the dumbing down of America has occurred and will continue until improvements in the system and an increase in parental involvement occur.

[JoanP]

Pedln, I'm afraid that link, that interview, gives away what became of Dan Dalgard at the time we're reading.  Some of us have not finished the book yet...  I will definitely read it when I learn what became of Dan Dalgard after the monkey house defection.


I went searching for the training the troops received when heading to West Africa in October...Was four hours enough in your estimation, hysteria2?
Do we have any of these young troups in Sierra Leone today?

"Soldiers Receive Just Four Hours Hazmat Training Before leaving for Liberia"

I noticed the photos in this link - of the YOUNG MEN receiving "training" as they stand on the tarmack ready to board planes.  I also see one young man quoted as "being kind of scared."

[Ella Gibbons]

This is all I have time for today:


WHO: Ebola transmission 'intense' in Sierra Leone    photo
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — The spread of Ebola remains "intense" in most of Sierra Leone even as things have improved somewhat in the two other countries hardest hit, the World Health Organization says. Some 168 new confirmed cases emerged in a single week in Sierra Leone's capital

[pedln]

I'm afraid that link, that interview, gives away what became of Dan Dalgard at the time we're reading

Actually it doesn't, JoanP.  Dalgard more or less descrilbes his actions and feelings up to when he first contacted Peter Jahrling.  I've been fishing this morning, looking for "where are they now" type articles and had NO LUCK with Dalgard.

I've also been wondering what happened to Hazelton Reston Products, finding relatively scant info.  But you may want to wait until you've finished the book before you read it.  It is quite an interesting summary.  (I gotta put 'em up when I find 'em or I'll never get back to them.)

Reston Hot Zone - 20 Years Later

Remember FDR --  The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.  I think American intelligence is fine.  Ignorance, understanding, education may be problem areas.  And I think the media contributes to that. (can't blame the Army for wanting to keep reporters out).  We've seen it with ebola; right now we're seeing it in another example in my state,  - "Listen in for the next episode of grand jury. Will Officer Wilson have to flee for his life?"

[bellamarie]

We will have to agree to disagree Hysteria2.  I feel Americans are more educated and informed due to internet, media, social networks, and more devices and means of information available.  I worked in education for over 30 yrs myself, and began the first technology lab in our school, it gave our students the means to research for information better than ever before.  The government just can't get away with hiding as much as it used to now.  Americans are far more intelligent today.  We don't have to use the television as our main or only source for information, so the biased networks who refuse to not report or spoon feed us what the administration wants us to hear is not working any longer.  You mention Fox News, did you know that it is the network that more Americans tuned into throughout the first week of Ebola in our country, beating all other networks?  

Pedln, I so agree with you.  Watching The View yesterday and hearing Rosie O'Donnell judge Officer William, and Nicole reminding Rosie, she does not know all the facts because she was not in the grand jury room, gave me much to be concerned about for Ferguson, and the rest of the country for that matter.  

Mary Page, Indeed, the hospitals are worried about budgeting for the proper equipment and classes to teach their workers on procedure and protocol.  I have many friends and relatives who work in our local hospitals and ERs, and I asked if they had been given classes, equipment and protocol, and they said NO, and were worried what would happen if an Ebola patient did indeed come to their ER.  Smoke and mirrors from the CDC throughout the time Duncan died even til now.  Still nothing in our local hospitals...so yes, they have legitimate reason to fear.

Dr. Friedman in an interview with Megyn Kelly said he would have no problem treating Ebola patients without all areas of the body covered, yet the next day they show him if full hazmat suit, and then new rules and protocol were issued:

In trying to understand how the nurses contracted the virus from Mr. Duncan, I think this article will help.  They have revised protocol and equipment, with adding a shadow person to help dress and undress.  As of today, people I talk to who work in our area hospitals in the ER, have not received training or equipment.  I am praying we have this under control.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/20/cdc-new-protocol/17638161/