The Demon in the Freezer - 02/10/21

 Hello Healthy Humans,


Book 8: The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story (8/10)


Premise: The history, elimination, politics, and weaponization of Small pox. 


The book starts out with the anthrax attacks of the early 2000's. Powder turning up in envelopes at politicians places of business, newspapers, and more. Then, BAM. We went back to the history of smallpox. A small German Town with a small pox outbreak, and the ring vaccinations that were used to help stop if from spreading open this part of the book. 


Next we jump further back to the creation of the first vaccine, which happened to be for smallpox. Almost every species on earth has a version of pox. Insects, monkeys, cows, camels, etc. But many of them are not contagious cross specious. However some old guy realized that people who got cowpox were much less likely to get smallpox. So he performed a highly unethical experiment and infected a boy with cowpox first (not deadly), and then tried to infect him with small pox (super deadly). Luckily it worked and the child lived, and a lot less people died of small pox since we had the first vaccine. 


Next in history comes something even more unethical. When Europeans (or Americans, I don't remember) were fighting Native Americans, they decided to infect them with small pox to "thin them out" so they would be easier to fight. Yes smallpox has been used a biological weapon before. 


Then we get to the story of the WHO and their fight to defeat smallpox once in for all. It took over a decade, but eventually they were able to completely eliminate it. This is a very interesting part of the book but I am going to keep it purposefully vague so you too can experience it. But I will add at the end of the day only two countries official have smallpox. The United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union all but admitted that they created smallpox into a biological weapon, and then during the collapse very possibly misplaced more than enough to infect the entire world. 


Finally we hit the anthrax scare again. Anthrax by itself is not very good a biological weapon. Because simply it doesn't spread from person to person. But it is very good at targeting people and buildings. Lots of time is spent talking to people who specialize in anthrax, ebola, and smallpox. At the end of the book you have a definitive fear that it's not if a bioweapon will be released, but when and how well prepared we'll be when it happens. 


This book was somewhat hard for me to read. I actually put it down for a while. I do not know if Corona Virus was a bio weapon, very few people will probably ever know with certainty. But reading through this book, it kept nagging at my head "What if". 


So wash your hands, it may help. 

and remember dear readers, Stay Vivid. 

P.S. I started a Goodreads so you can see what books are coming down the pipeline and what I am reading now. 

https://www.goodreads.com/friend/i?feature=friend-invite-url&invite_token=ZTdmYTNlNGUtNzVlOC00YzdlLWI0ZjEtMGRhZGRmN2E3ZDgw

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