From Barnes & Noble
Unlike most of its victims, smallpox has had a long life: The scourge appeared at least as early as 8000 B.C., and it wasn't declared eradicated until 1980. Dr. Jonathan Tucker, director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute, is convinced that we still stand in peril of its death force. He cites disturbing evidence about a Russian bioweapons program launched in 1973. Called Biopreparat, it was described by a Russian defector as "our Manhattan Project." Its scientists, like diabolical plotters in a graphic novel, researched the genocidal potential of Black Death, Marburg, smallpox, and other scourges. They even prepared a giant popsicle of death: a 20-ton freeze-dried batch of smallpox. Terrifying as it is, Scourge draws you in.
From the Publisher
Smallpox, the only infectious disease to have been eradicated, was one of the most terrifying of human scourges. It covered the skin with hideous, painful boils, killed a third of its victims, and left the survivors disfigured for life. In this riveting, often terrifying look at the history of smallpox, Jonathan B. Tucker tells the story of this deadly disease, the heroic efforts to eradicate it worldwide, and the looming dangers it still poses today.
Over the centuries, the smallpox virus afflicted rich and poor, royalty and commoners, and repeatedly altered the course of human history. In the sixteenth century, the Spanish conquistadors brought smallpox to the new world where it spread like wildfire among the indigenous populations, enabling the Spanish to conquer the Aztecs and Incas. In the eighteenth century, smallpox was so widespread in Europe that most people either became immune or died from the infection in childhood. Acquired immunity allowed the British army to employ smallpox as a biological weapon against North American Indian tribes in the aftermath of the French and Indian War.
No safe way of preventing smallpox existed until 1796, when an English country doctor named Edward Jenner developed a vaccine against it. During the ensuing 170 years, vaccination banished smallpox from the industrialized countries, but it remained a major cause of suffering and death in the developing world, killing almost two million people a year. Finally, in 1967, the World Health Organization launched an intensified global campaign to eradicate smallpox. By early 1978, the disease had been eliminated worldwide, a triumph ranking among the greatest achievements in medical history.
Even after smallpox eradication and the decision to halt the routine vaccination of civilians, laboratory stocks of the variola virus remained. During the 1980s, Soviet leaders cynically exploited the world's new vulnerability to smallpox by mass-producing the virus as a strategic weapon. After a Soviet defector exposed this top-secret program in 1992, the potential military threat triggered a series of urgent debates over how to respond. In recent years, the possible return of smallpox has taken an even greater urgency with the realization that clandestine stocks of the virus may still exist. In Scourge, Tucker tells the fascinating history of smallpox and draws some important lessons for the future.
Washington Post Book World
The most recent 10 years of smallpox's 6,000-year history. He reports the debate evenhandedly and with telling detail.
Publishers Weekly
The eradication of smallpox was one of the great medical successes of the 20th century. As Tucker (Toxic Terror) explains, smallpox has devastated humankind throughout most of its history. Highly contagious and with a fatality rate of about 30%, smallpox killed three times more people than did wars during the last century. Tucker describes the ravages caused by the disease and succinctly traces its role in history: its use as a biological weapon (by colonists against Native Americans, the British against American colonists during the Rwevolution and by both sides during the American Civil War) and the World Health Organization's remarkable battle, waged largely under the direction of Dr. D.A. Henderson, against naturally occurring smallpox (the battle was won in 1980). Even as the last traces of smallpox were being destroyed, however, the Soviets were experimenting with military uses for the deadly virus. Drawing on popularly published sources, Tucker argues that such research continued at least until the Soviet Union disbanded, and probably beyond. Other than mentioning that President Nixon prohibited such research in the United States, Tucker remains silent about any U.S. offensive strategies involving the disease. Warning that terrorists might well have access to samples of the smallpox virus, he remarks that, if successfully unleashed, the virus could decimate the world's population. Even though a naturally occurring case of smallpox has not been seen in more than 20 years, the government spends millions of dollars annually researching treatment strategies and producing vaccines for storage. Tucker breathes new life into mostly familiar material; the book is difficult to put down.(Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
A political scientist and an expert on bio-weapons analysis, Tucker provides an engrossing look at the continuing debate over the destruction of smallpox. The author uses numerous interviews with key players to look at the political and social aspects of the disease. Although a brief history of smallpox is included, the strength of the book lies in the author's description of the process used to eradicate naturally occurring smallpox. Equally valuable is the last section that considers the pros and cons of destroying the laboratory stockpiles of the virus. Postponed several times, the elimination of the remaining virus is now set for 2002. Concern remains among experts that if smallpox were somehow reintroduced into society, the public health system would not be able to contain the disease. The potential viability of smallpox as a biological weapon is covered in reasonable depth. Light on technical language, this accessible book is highly recommended for all libraries. Tina Neville, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Booknews
Smallpox is the only infectious disease to have been eradicated, but the virus still exists in laboratories. Following a 1992 revelation that the Soviet Union had secretly developed smallpox into a military weapon, officials around the globe expressed concern that samples of the virus could fall into the hands of "rogue" states and terrorist organizations. Since vaccination stopped in 1980, most of the world is now susceptible to infection. Tucker (Monterey Institute of International Studies) provides a history of the horrific disease and analyzes urgent efforts by the US and other countries to strengthen their medical defenses against it. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
Biological- and chemical-weapons expert Tucker offers a chilling account of smallpox's history, eradication, and temporary reprieve from total extinction, in virology labs in the US and Russia. Beginning with the biological origins of smallpox, Tucker (Toxic Terror, not reviewed) traces civilization's battle against this particularly disgusting disease. Noting its profound effect on historic events, from Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War to Cortez's subjugation of the Aztec empire, the author goes on to document humankind's battles against it, leading up to the World Health Organization's triumph of eradication in the 1960s and '70s. The author spins an engaging tale of the gritty conquerors and accidents of history that allowed smallpox to become a focus of global efforts, narrowly beating out malaria as the scourge of choice for the international community. From African deserts to Bangladeshi slums, untold thousands worked to follow chains of infection and to inoculate in the most trying conditions, many destroying their own health in the quest to break the back of the disease. As told by Tucker, it's a stirring tale, equaled in emotional impact only by horrifying saga of what happened after the WHO Nairobi field office documented the world's last known smallpox case in 1978. "The Kremlin cynically viewed this triumph of international public health as a military opportunity," he writes. The Soviets had incorporated biological weapons research into their military agenda beginning in the 1930s, and it remained on their five-year plans through the 1991 dissolution of the USSR. Tucker's in-depth report on the tremendous resources and scientific brainpower toiling away inmaximum-security Russian labs is mightily compelling, and his command of the myriad international political players and details is masterful. His vivid descriptions of the disease's symptoms, revolting and riveting in equal measure, ensure that only the most jaded reader could lay the book aside. A true-life tale of heroes and villains, frighteningly real and marvelously told.
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