{"id":892,"date":"2006-01-12T23:00:02","date_gmt":"2006-01-13T03:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=892"},"modified":"2012-11-12T21:52:19","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T01:52:19","slug":"the-demon-in-the-freezer-by-richard-preston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2006\/the-demon-in-the-freezer-by-richard-preston","title":{"rendered":"The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-893\" title=\"demon_in_the_freezer\" src=\"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/demon_freezer.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"97\" height=\"150\" \/>This is one of the scariest books I&#8217;ve read in a long time\u2014and it&#8217;s not fiction! Published in 2002, it chronicles the strange tale of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bt.cdc.gov\/agent\/smallpox\/overview\/disease-facts.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Smallpox<\/a>, its world-wide <a href=\"http:\/\/whqlibdoc.who.int\/smallpox\/9241561106.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">eradication<\/a>, and the lingering threat of its return. Millions are alive today thanks to the efforts of <a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.jhsph.edu\/default.cfm?faculty_id=306\" target=\"_blank\">D. A. Henderson<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/people-places\/henderson.html\" target=\"_blank\">2<\/a>) (who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002), the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/archives\/fonds_collections\/bytitle\/fonds_6\/en\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">World Health Organization<\/a>, and an army of public health workers. Smallpox is probably the worst disease the human race has ever known, and now it&#8217;s gone\u2014well almost&#8230; The demon lives on in at least two freezers, one at the <a href=\"http:\/\/cdc.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">CDC<\/a> in Atlanta and one in Russia. But there is no way to know how many other caches exist. In a cruel twist of fate, the fact that smallpox no longer exists &#8220;in the wild&#8221; makes it well suited for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/ncidod\/eid\/vol4no3\/hendrsn.htm\" target=\"_blank\"> bioterrorism<\/a>! It is the <a href=\"http:\/\/cryptome.info\/0001\/bioweap.htm\" target=\"_blank\">biological eqivalent of an atom bomb<\/a>, and perhaps worse. This\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cryptome.info\/0001\/smallpox-wmd.htm\" target=\"_blank\">New Yorker article<\/a> by Preston summarizes the major themes of the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of the scariest books I&#8217;ve read in a long time\u2014and it&#8217;s not fiction! Published in 2002, it chronicles the strange tale of Smallpox, its world-wide eradication, and the lingering threat of its return. Millions are alive today thanks to the efforts of D. A. Henderson (2) (who received the Presidential Medal of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2006\/the-demon-in-the-freezer-by-richard-preston\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20,22,8,47,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-medicine","category-people","category-reviews","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3841,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions\/3841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}