Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books About Pandemics 20240713

Rights movement. Some of these authors have appeared on book tv. And you can watch them online, abitibi. Org. And now on book tv, we would like to highlight some programs from our archives the focus on pandemics. All of the programs you are about to seek can be viewed in their entirety by visiting our website, booktv. Org and using the search function which you will find at the top of the page. First, and 2000 on cspans book notes program, science journalists gina talked about the history of influenza, specifically the 1980 outbreak. Heres a portion of that interview. Really never thought about the flu. If something they came around every year and people get second and they get better again. Never really court interest in it at all. Im a reporter for the New York Times that i wrote an article for the times, about it really miraculous discovery. It was a guy and Army Medical Center and he said supporting and technical journal called silence magazine they somehow managed to get lung tissues from soldiers who have died in 1918. That lung tissue, there was fragments of the virus and inmate interviewed, the doctor about his work, he told me about the influenza pandemic of 1918. I was stunned. I had just never heard of anything like this. It is the worst Infectious Disease in recorded history. This is something today, it would kill more people than top ten killers together. 1. 5 million americans. It came by today, then just cut out that some papers by the centers for Disease Control the 99 percent of the people that died this epidemic work under age 65. So was an astonishing and devastating epidemic and it was this idea that all of these years later, almost a century later, molecular biology has advanced and there is such incredible serendipitys, 70 could actually have lung tissue that still have those viral things in there, asked the question, what was this fibrous. How could influenza virus become such a killer. And could happen again and if so, would we recognize it in time. There is one reference in the book that may be 20 100 Million People died worldwide in 1918. Yes upward that number. They said thats an underestimate. I heard the most recently, there was a number of historians introduced and understand about the true number worldwide was close to 2,100,000,000 and possibl2,100,000,000. Its a sims and lives in human lungs, and while it is there, his job is to take along cell make it into a fibrous factory. So the virus gets in, it takes a cell and forces it to create more viruses and the cells die and the viruses escape. As a simple little thing. What happens to the body then printed. One is that you get a fever and you take to bed. You have muscle aches and pains. Lessig is for them. Fever, and you have a cough. Did you have it printed. I think i had at once. I thought this was the flu. It was so bad, five days. It was terrible. I had such muscle aches that were so bad printed. Back in 1918, where did it start. Forget question. The first became into the united is a big way. It was near boston. People thought at the time that is germ warfare because they couldnt believe it was Something Like the flu. They insisted on putting the word influenza and quotation marks. During world war i and there were these rumors that they had in this group cloud that was over the harbor that there were germs and it earned that somebody put into the bear aspirin that will kill people. It was the most horrible thing that anybody had ever witnessed. It had 70s young soldiers who were dying that they had have special training to take away the dead. Bodies just tacked up like corpses. If so shocking that the Surgeon General had the contention of three of the leading doctors in the United States to go out and say what is going on,. One of them later more road to memoir and he said i cant bear to think about the same. In the fall of 1918, the deadly influenza virus, superior territory of humans and the taking of human life. He said that these memories were burned on his parade. And when he described when the doctors were seen autopsy the said that there are so many dead the damn stuff over the bodies just to get into the autopsy room. The bodies have been dead and have not been removed yet. And then when they watch and autopsy take place, the military doctor open the chest of the young man who had died and his lungs were heavy filled with fluid, and essentially died because his lungs were filled with fluid. And doctor there had been pretty much turned and said, this must be a plague. He could not believe it printed. In your book, you explain with your. These are some of the samples of lung tissues for people of 1918. What was this virus. How would we ever knowing what was really miraculous, military warehouse, as a library of congress of the dead. Abraham lincoln, an average of the military does not happy is supposed but some of the tissue in the persons medical record in this big warehouse. They were people who died in 1918 and at the time, the doctors took little snippets of the lung tissue, subhuman formaldehyde and wrapped them in paraffin and sent them to the warehouse. In the doctor, at walter reed, finally at the end of the senses, put in requisition for people died about flu that had some viral things in it. And you just saw this pictures, the little pieces of paraffin wax with the lung tissue in an inside lung tissue after all these years, there is still that flu virus from 1918. Collected his pathology out here at walter reed, have you been there pretty. Yes, i have pretty. The 3m samples. Yes they are in boxes and margin things. Its his corrugated metal warehouse. Its protected from burning down. And they had these big rocks of boxes after boxes. And his job, is to overthink i would like to get some low samples, the people who had died of influenza in 1918 and he died very quickly. He wants to know who took gotten the flu virus and lingered. So actually since 1917, they had been computerized so you can get a computerized paper and takes at least boxes and there are symbols. Their brain tissue, all sorts of stuff in that warehouse. This was lung tissue. Is in the Abraham Lincoln started it. So there samples from back then in the civil war. It. Yes. From then on. This sort of like a pack of paradise. It was a brilliant idea because when they started with this, who would never know what you would use the score. The idea in 1918, no one had ever found influenza virus. So the idea that somebody someday we come back and make some use of this material was just brilliant. I know im jumping way ahead, do they know what caused this influenza in 1918. We know it was a flu virus. At this point and really long samples from people who died in 1980 have their genes in them. Getting them out is pushing the limits of molecular biology and it takes a long time. I put together about musi detaid mosaic. Theyve gotten three of these particular now. They choose them in the order of the livelihood that what they will get an easy answer to. Unfortunately they told them that the flu virus, is related to bird viruses is not provided answers yet to us by it was dangerous pretty. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Only one person that works are pretty. One person i saw but i am sure there are others pretty. Did you get a sense that there is a lot of interest or traffic. No, i was the only person there pretty. How big of a facility was it printed. Huge warehouse. In maryland. One of the things, and did not expect to get out of this book was a drama. Personal stories in here that are fairly dramatic. We surprised about the competition going on to find this pretty. By the summer started to write this book, i knew there was a story. Write books for myself. Every defection for fun. I wouldnt write a book in the said that there was a story. For me it is not something that i would pick up and rate just because i wanted to read it. So thats what appealed to me that wasnt there was drama there. There was competition. And so, so all of the witnesses for the research of the scientists, and the stated pretty. Back in 1918 again, was is more devastating flu and the average when that we hear about all of the time today. There is no comparison. I think its a little earlier, 1. 5 million the markets have died in a typical flu season, 20000 died. And most of them are very old perhaps some other sort of chronic medical conditions that really weakens them. Heres 99 percent of them were under age of 65. Very for killer death occurrence. Very young guys and then people between the age of 20 40 died in huge numbers. This middle of the w. And then old people died. I would like to ask you to read page 25 about thomas, the authors brother. I guess he died of this. And then thomas, would enjoy this. That is fiction but asked a number of people listen the subscription of his brothers death. It was actually his brothers ruling a description that was not fictionalize. It was really what happened when his brother died pretty. You might reading this and tell us why you put this in the book. I think that when i talk about the flu, and people who are living today who are talking with lou, its almost impossible for us to imagine what it was like. Advised mistress i could with the words into simple words in there. Because we have seen it, and is a sort of a in a motion that i cannot describe. And i dont think anybody else is been able to capture it. Of all of the inscriptions that ive read about people dying of the flu, this one is just it really touched me. Almost brought me to tears. The saddest thing. And you can imagine yourself in the room watching somebody die like this. As one of those moments, i cannot forget this passage. Thats why put it in. He came home to death watch. His brother going in sick room upstairs was family waited to fear what of what was the inevitable. He went upstairs to the gray shaded the light. He saw in that moment of recognition is beloved 26 yearold brother was dying and heres a clue of how he died. His lungs and body were three quarters covered his outline was bitterly twisted below the covers an attitude of struggling torture. Seemed not too long to him. Somehow distorted and detached as if it belonged to a beheaded criminal and the sallow part of his face turned gray. In two red flags of fever. His beard was growing. It was some type how horrible. His then in a constant torture of strangulation above is somehow dead looking feet has inch by inch gasping for air into his lungs. The sound of his gasping, on believable and orchestrating every moment. But his final note of horror. The next he was delirious. By 4 00 oclock is apparent his death was near printed and then his consciousness in an consciousness and delirium of most of the time he was delirious. His breathing was easier. His coming some popular song. Always return to this quiet coming, to popular song wartime. It is unsentimental and now tragically moving. And then he sank into unconsciousness. His eyes were almost close. Death. He lay quietly upon his back very straight. And with a curious nest of his face, his mouth was firmly shut. I fervently was praying. Whoever you are, go to them tonight. Whoever you are, be good to be men tonight show him the way. He heard only the people rattle of his dying breath. He will suddenly calling his family in. He quietly waits till this body appeared to grow weaker. The last gaps been drew upon air and long and powerful respiration. His gray eyes opened. Filled with the terrible vision of all moment, he seemed to rise without support. In like to glory. He passed instantly and unafraid as he lived. Weve opened up our archives to look at author programs about the pandemic. In 2012, Science Writer david wrote the diseases that originated in animals and then spread to humans. They call these animal infections the passenger humans, zone analyses, the virus or it could be other forms of infectious bugs, it can be a bacterium, it could be a prone zone, like the creatures the cause malaria it could be a fungus, it can be warm, gibby something called a precaution, which causes mad cow disease. In another syndrome. Usually it is a virus. Viruses more than anything. They passed from animals into humans. They dont always cause disease print is sometimes they become harmless passengers in humans. There is a virus that attack about in the book and i cannot resist it because that such a wonderfully gruesome name and find the light side of this subject. When you can find it. And with all due respect to the people who suffered and died and there a lot of deaths in this book is strictly nonfiction bilitis and i respect that. But still, i did not want this book to be just a painful gruesome duty. Just an important scary book. I also wanted it to be a pleasurable fleeting experience. I wanted to be page turner. I wanted to have moments of suspense, chemistry and discoveries printed moments of heroism by some of these scientists who are outstanding the sort of thing. And yes even some moments of humor. It is not a very funny book. But anova might be the funniest book about ebola that you ever read. [laughter]. As i said, some of these bugs some of them harmless but often theyre not. If it passes into humans and causes mayhem there, that we call it does so a disease and 6s diseases of humans are zoonotic diseases. Another 40 percent everything comes from somewhere. The other 40 percent are probably of zoonotic origin and the broader sense. For instance measles is only a disease of humans. Where did it come from. Probably came from a virus that causes the disease. And maybe in hoofed animals in africa but maybe it has been in humans long enough that it has evolved and become adapted specifically to humans. So it is different. Different enough, then it is considered and functions as a uniquely human virus. But the 60 percent that are considered zoonotic, passing backandforth or passing from animals to humans on either a continuing basis or have been that very recently. And that includes things like ebola, marburg, all of the influences west nile virus the other viruses hiv. A talk at some length in the book about the ecological origins of the aids pandemic and we now know that the pandemic strain of hiv past from a single chimpanzee to a single human in a fairly small corner of south eastern cameroon and Central Africa in 19081908, we know that, we know that because theres some wonderful scientists who have worked on the genetics, the mueller carol fiber of the genetic takes that are precursors to hiv and then are intense and monkeys in the genetic diversity of hiv one program which is the pandemic strain. In these scientists have managed to locate the spillover event with a high degree of confidence. Theres always a certain provision nullity in science. They located it to southeastern cameron, one chimpanzee, one human, presumably a human who killed the chimpanzee and cutting himself on the hand of god blood to blood contact while he was butchering the chamfer food. And in the very early parts of the 20th century. Sometime around or before 1908. Michael borghi, and beatrice hollen are the scientists who with her colleagues in the mud assistance who were there. So there are these diseases, they spillover, there zoonotic, one other slightly technical term that i want to familiarize you with, is a reservoir post. The reservoir host is the kind of animal in which the bug, the virus or whatever it is, they live and permanently inconspicuously, without causing disease. Without causing mayhem. In that particular creature. What is live there. What is live there nondestructively. Probably because its been in that species for millions of years. And then an accommodation has evolved. So i virus in this reservoir host, replicates but it does not replicate calves christmas sleep. It tends to replicate slowly and it doesnt generally cause symptoms. So is invisible. It hides in this reservoir post. And something happens, humans kill any debt host, they come in contact with it, somehow maybe, i will tell you a couple of stories of ways it could happen. There is for host sheds of virus the virus gets into humans. And it becomes zoonotic disease. One of the things that the scientists do as they study this field and if they focus on these different diseases, one of the very first things that they have to do is identify the reservoir post. An Agency Spears over in malaysia. It is killing pigs and linens killing pig farmers and big butchers and park sellers. Where did it come from. They find it in the isolated virus in the human victims and in the pigs. The same virus in the human victims and in the pigs. This is a true case in a happened in 1998. They named it mika after particular village in malaysia. And then went looking for the reservoir post. Where was it. They found it in large fruit bats of the genus to rope us, the kind that are called the flying foxes in asia. How did this boulevard occur. The disease the detectives finally tracked through the route most likely spillover and heres what happened. People were cutting down forests, and peninsula of malaysia for development and for agriculture and for the timber itself. Cutting down the forest destroyed fruit bat habitat. And they were displaced they had to go looking for food for nectar somewhere else. They started going to human settlements. If there were orchards they were attracted to them and fruit trees planted by humans. Some of the fruit trees planted by humans work on tripping forms. It was a second stream of income for the big farmers around these great big factory skilled big farms in northern and Central Peninsula malaysia. Some of these farmers even planted in many countries and another kind of retreat called the butter apple. Very close to their openair excise and in some cases even shading the pigsty. And the mets come to fruit trees and planted of the big size, they eat the fruit and they to the mango, into the water apple, they dropped the pulp into the pigsty, they dropped their feces and they drop their urine. Drop their virus. And that goes into the pigsty the pigs pick it up and they get sick in the pigs, there infectious respiratory disease and the pigs are coughing and barking and passing this virus from one to the other. The pigs are mostly not dying however. Its a killing that many thanks. But becomes a horrendous agricultural problem. And then it starts getting into humans. And kills 109 people. Because the government of malaysia to preventively kill 1. 1 million pigs printed and required to the killing of all of the pigs from the effective farms. Its of people were so scared by this disease that where they were abandoning been there on farms. They were running away from them big farms. And at one point pigs were running loose of two villages in some cases abandoned villages. It is like a nightmare scenario it really happened. It is like something out of early or mac mccarthy of the book of exodus. Noninfectious pigs, running wild through the countryside. There are coughing of virus. And one fellow called that they 1 mile barking cough because you could hear the sick pigs coming. Any know know that your pet form would be next. The story. Its encephalitis and humans. So this is what the disease scientist to bring the garden try to solve the ecology and evolutionary biology of these new diseases. Where does the virus live, what is a reservoir host, how do humans come in contact with the virus, what are they doing in many cases it is that kind of ecological disruption that cause the contact in the spillover and it gets into sometimes an intermediate animal. The pigs, in case of a nostril he revives virus falls out of and gets into horses. Pigs or horses are referred to as the amplifier post. The virus reproduces abundantly them and they should lots of virus in the negative people. Hes in hendrick, the viruses and is strongly upgraded and it is called kendra after suburb. His recent suburb. 1994 and stables and that suburb, forces start did to die. It was sudden. Why are they dying. Did they get some poisonous feeder. A veterinarian, a trainer, horse trainer and stable had tried to save the horses. The foreman got sick and went home and he thought bad flu. The trainer got sick and very bad flu and went into the hospital and the mature and arion never got sick. In the trainer died. The isolated virus from him and his organs and from the horses and they had a new virus in the named it kendra after the suburb. Then they did the disease detection. Where did it come from. A fellow who was the chief detective on this case, he was doing his phd on that he was a veterinarian. He sampled it all sorts animals pretty he sampled kangaroos, thats, rats, mice and insects. And things other things pretty he did find the virus. Finally he sampled the fruit fats and he matched what it killed the horses in the trainer and they give it a name hendrick virus. It hasnt killed very many people, does not pass from human to human but it is a knock on the door. A reminder to us of where these things come from and how they emerge and why they spillover. The fact that they are not all independent cases their part of a pattern that pattern reflects things that we human are doing on the planet. And then you get into humans and in some cases, they cause a local outbreak which is easily controlled or which comes to an end on its own. In another cases, they cause widespread suffering and death. Is the coronavirus continues to affect the country, were taking a look at other programs about pandemics that we have had in our archive. Next, University Professor discusses his book, the great influenza which provides a history of the 1918 influenza outbreak. Heres a portion of his heart from 2004. Now you have the enemy. It is the virus. All influenza viruses, our bird viruses. Every one of them. Periodically, and through history it is happened at three five times in a century. Periodically in influenza virus will jump species from birds to people. And i can do this because it is one of the fastest mutating of any virus in existence. In fact they referred to it in a few other viruses as a mutant storm because i dont are even about subtype, there is no single virus. Theyll sort of just like a swarm of hornets. There are moving around. And influenza virus infects itself, in about six hours, a single cell in a sense emitting explodes in between 100 billion, new virus particles escape from that sale. Every one of them is different. Most of them are so different that their defective and they can affect another cell and about 1 percent of those viruses but still be 20,010,000 viruses from one cell. They are able to affect in himself. But that mutation rate, allows it to jump species. In 1918, its not the only lethal pandemic in history. Of influence of the not all people for example we went through pandemics in 1957, in 1968. In that while they killed considerably more people normally dive influenza, the normal death toll, excuse me for influenza is 36000 people a year. They die of the influence upgraded and 57 and 68, there were double and 60 in and 57, about three four times the normal numbers of people who died of influenza book compared to 1918, they were just like a severe epidemic. Now the story really begins when the virus jumps from birds to people. Nobody knows exactly for certain where that happened. Most pandemics are in asia. How ever theres some overlooked epidemiological evidence that i managed to trip over that strongly suggests that this virus actually jumps species in kansas. And then i moved from rural kansas, the Far Southwest corner of the state, and move from rural kansas to what is now fort riley. In fort riley had been 56000 troops. Very closely packed in barracks and there are being trained to kill. As it turned out, it would be far more effective at killing than anyone could imagine. As i say, this was a war waged by nature against man. It hit with a full force. It took about six months for the virus, once it jump species, it wasnt immediately efficient in attacking man. He had to adapt to his new environment. This took a while before the road became at home and humans. In real became efficient in invading humans. But about six months after it jumped, it became very lethal and in some units tenuously, exploded its form. One of the first places hit by the severe form, was the second wave was during spring card there were outbreaks, scap devon just outside her was, schools now, just outside of boston. In arrigo letter from a physician. To another physician what was going on. These men have what appears to be an ordinary attack of influenza. But we went to the hospital very rapidly developed the most vicious type of pneumonia than its ever been seen. Two hours after admission they had mahogany spot in a few hours later, you can begin to see the cyanosis its when you start turning blue actually because of lack of oxygen. You see the cyanosis extending from the heirs and sweating all of the face until it is hard to distinguish the color men from the whites. His only matter in this at our people returning. Spread rumors ofs black death. You could distinguish blood from whites. It was only a matter of a few hours, then until death comes. It is horrible. When can stand to see one or two or 20 men, die. But to see these portables, dropping like flies. Could been averaging about 100 deaths per day. In about all cases, we have lost an outrageous number of militants and doctors. It takes special trains to carry away the dead. For several days there were no coffins the bodies piled up something fierce. The most they ever had in france after a battle. God be with you until we meet again. Now is this virus spreads across the world, and across and throughout the United States, it puts extreme pressures on the political system. And in fact, its very good case study that quite relevant and unfortunately to relevant to fears about bioterrorism not to mention the possibility of another influenza outbreak. And it demonstrated that the political system then was not prepared to handle it. Chiefly because the politicians had a different priority. There was a focus on the war and the irony is, and the unfortunate irony is that this hit when we were literally only four five weeks away from the end of the war. Virtually every enemy we were fighting except germany itself had already stopped in germany had already started sending out feelers for peace. But wilson and the entire administration was so focused that they would not do anything for Public Health. That might in any way jeopardize the hundred percent war effort that wilson had call the brutality that he wanted to induce and infuse the american spirit with. And as a result, not only the federal officials, the Public Health officials and mayors and governors all over the United States is sensually lied. First they told people that this was only an ordinary influenza. Then they told people that fear kills more people than the disease. In philadelphia, where they actually were planning a huge liberty rally, hundreds of thousands of people were about to be in the streets. Very early now rightcurlybracket of the general public was not aware that there was a problem. Privately, one doctor was warning the Public Health commissioner that this rally would create a flammable masking he was trying to get everybody notice this paper to print a warning. They all refused. The Public Health commissioner refused and did not pay any attention. In many other asian nations were saying same thing. Now this rally and again hundreds of thousands of people and 72 hours later in philadelphia, influenza absolutely excluded to the point that not only did they run out of coffins which have been almost every city of the United States, but they actually used steam shovels to dig mass graves when i simply rolled the bodies wrapped in sheets in. And pretty literally drove horsedrawn carriages down the street. Calling upon people to bring out there dead. Very reminiscent of the black death. The same thing was happening all of the country. And very rapidly, society began tos disintegrating the reason was, that people very soon were getting this great disconnect. They could see, their spouses nine and 24 hours. Times. They could get the body out. There was nobody to take body out pretty down the street, somebody else is dying in a few hours or a few days. They were emergency hospitals being formed, being created all over the place. At the same time, the Public Health was prominent in the mayors and the only you can read in the newspaper is a kills more than the disease, the fear does. Dont worry, you can keep yourself safe. So this ridiculous reassurance that they were getting, was so conflicted with what they were saying about them, destroyed their trust and all authority. And ultimately society is built on trust. And without it, as i say, it began tos disintegrate. Garlic and pandemics continues with investigative journalist sonja shaw who in 2016, talked about the spread of Infectious Diseases in the path and argued for the need to look at the social and political root causes for them. So the first pandemic started in 1917. And it spread into russia and into the industrial cities of europe. And this is exactly what is happening today with a new pathogen. We are invading Wildlife Habitat only destructing it. In a way where allowing animals and people to come into novel intimate cons of contact. And when that happens, viruses can jump over into our bodies become pathogenic. So from that we got ebola, and a number of other viruses as well. Camels, probably giving us respiratory symptoms printed from monkeys who most likely got a steve cup. Another malaria and hiv and birds not influenza. So this is now they are merging and therefore allowing them to amplify. And that is started in the 19th century people were flocking out of the farm to come in to these new factory jobs in cities. What is not a lot of sprawl back then. They didnt have the metro to take it to the outlying areas pretty soon lymph near the worker possibility of work. So places like new york city had about 77000 people per square kilometer. This meant that they were breathing on each other more and touching each of the more. Their waste was contaminating, the food and water. There is no sewage and 19th century industrial city. They had privies and outhouses read theres no real that you had empty any of that stuff out. So people did what they did in the countryside the just let it sit to decompose. But 77000 people per square kilometer, just think about what happened with that waste it would go into the streets and go into peoples wells and contaminated well water. It spread through contaminated waste, and it just explodes. So that started in the 19th century printed is only reaching its peak now. So just a few years ago, half of humankind now live in the cities printed that just happened a few years ago. The majority of us will live in by 2030. For not going to be cities Like Washington dc and san francisco. The boy cities more like monrovia. Ad hoc, lots of slums, chaotic. But 2 billion people live in slums. That is the prediction. And taking advantage of the start out this massive urban expansion. In four parts of the world in particular pretty ebola is really good example of that predict we had a bullet out racks back in the 1970s. But i never had infected the place is than a few hundred thousand inhabitants. Before 2013. It came out in guinea, within a few weeks of that, and infected three Capital Cities of combined population of nearly a million. Thats a really important reason there is such a huge information buried arguably it these other ezekiel viruses are also taking advantage of it. It was mostly in asia and africa. It was carried by force mosquito. And they mostly bit animals. They didnt invite people that much. Some people didnt really get a lot of it. Right now, in america, is being carried by mosquitoes that specializes in living in human habitation. Initially breed and a drop of water in the bottlecap. So all of her plastic garbage that we leave around in urban areas are perfect environments for this ezekiel to breeden and they only bite humans. So this virus gotten to asia, it started to explode to. Urban areas have expanded in shopping areas especially. And they carry these things around. That started in the 19th century. We started taking steamships across the atlantic really quickly. And we got on the reverse and then of course i connected all of his waterways by using steam engines to build canals. So 1825, the erie canal had opened. In justintime for them to come over from london and paris and into canada and into the waterways into new york city and into the entire part of north america that happened again and again and again. We do much better today for sprint memo flights network. The just a few Capital Cities of air force but hundreds of airports and tens of thousands of connections between oliver airports. In fact, this is a part i have in the book, you can make a map of all of the cities of the world that are connected by direct flights and if you run a simulated flu pandemic and map like that, basically just looks like a wave. Like a pebble dropped intimacy and expanding powers. You can predict, where and when an epidemic will strike simply by measuring the number of direct flights between infected and uninfected cities. That is how interracial our Flight Network is. In the way epidemic spread today. These are just some of the ways i talk about in the book how modern life really increases the risk of these epidemics and driving pathogens in our human population. But the other part of the book, is about what we do about it. We dont take these things lying down. We have defenses, political and medical all kinds of things we can do to fight back pretty and contain these pathogens. So is very interesting to see what happened in 1832 in new york. I spent a lot of time in the book to disliked the outbreak in particular. Now 1932, they came down into canada and the governor of new york sent one of his top doctors up into upstate new york. To see what was happening. See if anything was threatening new york writing a collected data that has been mapped and it appears the book. It shows a very clear picture of this clusters of cases all around the hudson river and all along the erie canal and even time series in conceit coming down. Heading straight for new york city. Very trajectory. But nobody new york where the rivers are the smells. The canals would turn new york city into a bathwater port. Into a premier part of the country and turned new york into the empire state. This is a huge part of the economy nobody wanted to expose the book the waterways which would have been the obvious thing to do. To protect the city the time. And then the doctor said, well might look like the waterways, or contagious but actually it is caused by next month, medical. That is 2000 result. The diseases the contagious are essentially spread through bad smells. And they decided to blame those bad smells on the drunks, the poor, and immigrants. And especially the irish in 1832. This was violence. Not just nearly a bad mouthing them in the press. This is bad. Lost my train of thought. I think im having a senior moment. [laughter]. Oh my god. Excuse me. Let me get my notes here. All right okay yeah yeah. The doctor the doctor. They didnt want to accept it. This is actually, this is actually my favorite part of the story. So they didnt want to quarantine the waterway. In fact, there were companies at the time that were distributing water. And they were making money doing it. So the song in the middle of manhattan. If anybody has seen gangs of new york. It was probably from there. That is where all of the worst parts of the epidemic affected that some. This because it was really crowded and filthy. And that had actually been built in what was was a pond called the collect pond. Theres only part of freshwater in manhattan for a long time. And it was filled up with garbage in the slums have been built on top of that garbage filled hole. So the ground underneath, the 5foot slum was like really low lying and stable. With bedrock. So the groundwater was very easily contaminated underneath the slum because there was no sewer system all the outhouses things work in all their materials were sinking down into the groundwater. The state of new york tried to deliver Drinking Water to the people new york. The company instead of tapping upstream, and the time the river of north it was fresh and clean. They knew it would taste better for sure. They thought that would cost too much money so they made a decision sort of like what happened in michigan which they decided not to tempt the good water. They decided instead they would sink their wells in the middle of that song. They distributed that water to one third of the people new york. In this through repeated epidemics. Now this is the good part is the person a kind of maneuvered all of this was aaron. Alexander hamiltons murder. On top of that, the company that did this was called the Manhattan Company and the reason i wanted to save all of this money is because they wanted to start a bank. Which they did. The bank of the Manhattan Company in the bank still exist to this day. Do you know what is pretty j. P. Morgan chase credit biggest bank in america. That is the early history. I told that story in the book because i think we dont really look at the political and social drivers of contagions enough. I think that is an interesting kind of turnaround from past. Malaria. Mental lot of malaria in countries to the mid 19 hundreds. And we really got rid of it before we had solid Biomedical Solutions by changing our land use policy basically. Was started the dams of course, that engineers and malarial adjust and sign his sewer on the boards of the stamps to make sure that when we built them that we would watch out for the habitat. People put screens on the windows and doors. We have had people out of poverty in the rural areas we give them electricity and mechanization on the farms. And they belted out. It is as well before we had ddt or any specific drugs to do with malaria. Then in the 1940s instead of developing these really specific chemical cures only had penicillin, dte, and created a whole new biomedical biomedical establishment. They came very powerful. And they were good hearing diseases very effectively. We state sort of game over Public Health to her biomedical establishment. And so what happens now that we have outbreaks in contagious disease, we look for the social and political roots, people get sick, then we help, that we can throw suspicion vaccines and drugs out to make it go away. They can work in some cases. But what i am trying to say in this book that it is really not suspicion for new diseases. When new pathogens come up dont have a vaccine all made up. They dont have the drugs. Any of these things can spread exponentially. We are talking about exponential growth of untreatable disease. One example of this of not looking at the social Political Part of it is now break in florida in 2009. It came out and was really centered in key west. In south florida generally. It had been there for 70 years. It was immediately attacked as us biomedical problem. Attacking the insect and the buyers pretty thats what we did. But of course florida it had been it had been there for a long time. They been surrounded with it that is not new. They havent really been in any invasion of virus mosquitoes that needed to be attacked with this chemical. What happened in 2008 was when a foreclosure crisis. And it meant that we had a lot of abandoned homes. In florida and the means a lot of empty swimming pools. And so when the rains came, these empty swimming pools filled up with water and they became giant mosquito hatcheries. That is known as a year later we have this unprecedented outbreak of mosquito borne virus in florida. I dont know if addressing housing prices would have helped contain this outbreak in florida because nobody tried that. What i do know arguably is that biomedical model failed. And continuing to have these outbreaks in florida considered a permanent part of the landscape there. So what i want to say in this book is as great as her Biomedical Solutions are, if he start to prevent pandemics, if we engage with the root causes of them, which are more often political and social, in which cases inside the weight waiting for the perfect cure, its really a question of our own political world. Youre watching book tv on cspan2 and were taking a look at other programs about the pandemics. In may of 2016, the doctor la thon former director of the cdcs office of Public Health prepared this and response from talked about a new diseases keep merging. We play a role in keeping them from epidemics and pandemics pretty good example would be the recent outbreak of ebola in west africa. So it was not new. It is not about ebola since 1976 pretty big known about the science of ebola since 76 i have the opportunity to help support that science and the mid 1990s, printed in a bowl of outbreak. So what happened. You get infected with the boiler, usually probably with a bat. If you are far outweighed the bush, you die. 95 percent of the people died and unfortunately may be a Family Member to die. But if youre out in the middle of english, youre done. This and you change the dynamic you decide to go to hospital. Unfortunately on a hospital, the does not have infection control. So when are infected with ebola, fuson truly become a fires factory. And you get infected and if your immune system is not kicked in, your just increasing the amount of virus year reducing every minute until you die. So you when you have the most hostile but theres nobody, and you die, as you go to the hospital because youre sick, you do not have more than when you die. Okay. And i can give you a ten with lots of big numbers around it. Hundreds and millions and billions of bacteria that are in your blood. So here you are sick and dying in a hospital and somebody does not wash their hands as they go from patient to patient. What will happen. So when this outbreak occurred the biggest we have seen since 1976 people thought this was happening in east africa and then shut them down within a couple of days and then they dont even he those International Teams when they test everybody and they follow everybody who is potentially sick so this occurred in west africa nobody had seen the disease before it very quickly it spread to urban areas large metropolitan areas and the thinking was more of the same and then the abode outbreak will go away. But thats not what happened 11000 deaths each and everyone was needless death with the an adequate response or the global response. So politics and the Public Health system play the biggest role if this is a handful of cases or small outbreaks so what we have is the epidemic across west africa because we know what happened here in the United States and one of the reasons with another social political factor that plays into those Infectious Diseases we didnt have so how many have read around the world in 80 days . How quaint. Eighty days to get around the world . [laughter] for 22 years they were Public Health uniform and on it looks very much like the navy uniform because we started about 200 years ago providing care for the merchant marines and now we still fly the quarantine flags when ships came into port but if you think 80 days from point a through point to be by the time you showed up in new york we knew if you had yellow fever or smallpox because the incubation period would manifest was always shorter than the time to go from point a to point b. We turn that upside out so now you can go to your mothers funeral in liberia, engage in the usual acts of a funeral you are distraught, you are kissing and hugging her and then get in a plane from amsterdam to new york city now 2448 hours of the incubation period of five or seven days and then you show back up. And then to show a bad hospital the number one diagnosis and malaria. And then they miss this to see and that somebody showed up. And that the Health Care System is not any different from when they had the sars outbreak or singapore or hong kong and seoul korea had an outbreak due to mers. They do have an excellent Healthcare System but theyre not ready for patients coming in with this so travel plays a big role of how these diseases emerge currently. So now a sense of what you will hear about this a lot we can do to make things better to protect people. I did want to spend a couple of minutes to talk about the Carnegie Council and the observation which i recognize my whole life for those that get infected with hiv it is a marginalized population so it dawned on me every chapter you can pull out that marginalized population with emerging infections this is a disease due to rodents most likely people to get infected with the original outbreak is among native americans and some of you will remember in the early 19 nineties the group of young navajo kids were on the capital to were and were denied the tour of the capital because you came from the southwest you could be affected so with theres nothing that we knew but often they affect marginalized population i already talked about hiv i talked a little bit about you bola and the more marginalized populations of west africa and in todays day and age we talk about sica and there are pregnant women in the brazil i think thats what they are calculating now in over 1500 women have been infected have got congenital sica still syndrome where the babies get small brains including hearing loss and vision problems so sica one the sica virus is a laser guided missile the looks for the neuron cell and is not just true and babies. So when this was first described what we were told 20 percent will get sick then they will get of fever and headache itching and red eyes and get better and very quickly became clear this was our problem for pregnant women but now we know even for adults because of the laser focus on the neuron cells we have a gilly on breeze syndrome even in a healthy person zika can cause brain inflammation with the covering around your brain. Thats even for those that are not pregnant is why it is a problem. The virus is spread by a certain type of mosquito it is not new to us. The exact same mosquito that spread yellow fever causing 30001 30000 deaths per year also with we had this conversation about five years ago five years ago we would talk about the large dengue outbreak about 30000 deaths per year also chicken doing a virus that doesnt seem to cause any deaths but because of the failure since the seventies to keep up with the efforts to decrease mosquitoes and kill them and not paying attention to people dying from yellow fever and dengue now we are up in arms we have a disease that is infecting pregnant women but the lack of action over 40 years against a known threat puts us in this current position at least in south america and i heard yesterday that zika is now not only moving throughout the americas but it is knocking on the door of africa to say hi. You are next so think about what will happen as it goes through africa and the risk to pregnant women there. What are the lessons from the 1918 pandemic . If you look at that terrible time more than we ever could have imagined i think there are some differences and important similarities but we should focus on the differences between now and 1918 because that did live but on leave us understanding of what it was that was killing people in 1918 so just to remind everybody they had not yet discovered viruses that wouldnt happen within the next couple of decades. With 50 and 100 Million People 675,000 in the us to be about 3 million and the word influenza people thought it was the stars and planets that was killing them because they were misaligned because it comes from the word influence. So the scientific communities urgently to figure out what cause so much destruction. And today we are in a very different place and within two weeks of the first descriptions of coronavirus the chinese had published the full genome of the coronavirus of covid19 it was in english for everybody and around the world. And of course is today. Are you surprised or not where we were in early april . There are often reports of novel viruses that are describe described. With those cases of the new influenza viruses. And several of the last few decades in china or hong kong or elsewhere and we watch them with curiosity and a little bit of concern in the rapidity that which this pandemic spread surprised me and many others as well. Host you wrote the following, just one century is all that separates us from a Global Health crisis that killed more people more than any other illness in recorded history but in the interim what we have learned to scare and motivate us maybe not enough to stop another pandemic from happening because of the mystery and the ability to mutate and spread it is one of the most dangerous foes. Thats right on the midst of the pandemic it has a seasonality to it and the coronavirus with the family of viruses cause the common cold if you have that on a virus because there are cold symptoms over the winter thats very common and goes away. So what is different and having cause some devastation we dont think it is a different virus and then to cause tremendous devastation through early winter in 1919 so will covid19 act like a regular coronavirus and will it disappear . We hope so we hope it will continue to act like a winter virus but then what will happen in the fall . Will it disappear . Or will it come back with a vengeance just like influenza did in the pandemic of 1918. Host and four years later another flu virus in 1957 affected americans around the world this is a documentary with the Westinghouse Company in partnership with the ama and back in 1957. The responsibility for preparing the United States with asian influenza the Surgeon General of the United States and that has been gathering everybody i know talking about influenza but i dont think anybody really knows. A respiratory infection like a cold and the difference between asian influenza so then and the strain of the virus because in hong kong to the rest of the world and the United States. Every year influenza is a problem in our community so why are we so concerned about it now . So even with the outbreaks the attack rate is 15 or 20 percent of the population misses between four or six weeks. With approximately 1 Million People then the flu would strike you would have approximately 200,000 people in that four through six week span and that would have a tremendous impact on the economy. Thats from Westinghouse Broadcasting and more recently doctor brown in 2019 figures indicate 16000 died from the standard influenza why was it such a mystery . The challenge of influenza is perhaps i would phrase its differently it isnt a mystery but a challenge so to find a vaccine we dont have to repeat and so to get a flu vaccine and that difference is what we get as children as mumps and measles and rubella so then you are immune for the rest of your life and that is a very clever shape shifter and while we become immune to the virus it could lead to changes in this means the new strains that affect us are not recognized by the immune system and so to find that universal vaccine against all strains of the flu and not year after year after year so those are the challenges and there is a flu virus that directs the immune system with that piece of the virus that sounds easy to do but in fact it is very challenging with covid19 and there will be different challenges but certainly this needs to be figured out with a vaccine year after year with those different strains of covid19 and all the scientists are trying to work out to have some kind of vaccine as quickly as possible. Host growing up in london with a 100 year hunt good morning from ohio. Caller my question has to do with all of this i havent heard anybody ask yet, i woke up this morning to murdoch ministries. Asking for money again they have millions of dollars in multiple homes and private planes and then to go to Foreign Countries isnt this the best way to sow the seeds back to the people . Why is no one looking at that those administered on ministers are endangering Peoples Health nobody is directing to them. I believe that alone is antichristian and anti god spirit thats not really part of your area of expertise but you can comment if you want to they understand social distancing . They certainly did. And it has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. And then around we get 40 days quarantine and with that idea something mysterious with that 40 day number. And that social distancing and quarantine. And during the very foundations of this country and that there was a devastating smallpox that killed between 80 n95 people of the country and even back then there was the notion or suggestion we should distance ourselves we have early quarantine rules of the 17 twenties and you have no idea. And that is social distancing. And with that epidemic it was widely accepted and also with the facemasks. And with hundreds of years. I thought that audio clip from 1918 was interesting the doctor that was speaking to pennsylvania exactly 70 miles due north from where i am load located. And so what have we done . And then more than two times the number of cases than any other country in the world. It certainly appears with the modeling we will have way more deaths than any other country in the world talking about a second wave coming in the fall i dont believe it is monday morning quarterbacking to take a look at what has been done that should have been done differently because it certainly appears as if this situation it will not go away. As they said it would it is very discouraging i dont want to get political especially at a time like this i dont think we should worry how the horse got in the ditch but after that we have to take a look at what was done in the complete lack of preparedness we have had as a direct contribution to the vast number of deaths that we experience in this country. Thank you for the call. The very important aspect is to figure out what we could have done better once this is all behind us so right now to limit the infection to make sure each of us is doing our part. But you are quite right when this is done we will have to at some very important questions how we allocate resources for Scientific Research and its not surprising that endemic preparedness is put to the side more important ways so certainly we need to think of a community and as a nation what we can do to be better prepared with the outbreak in Great Britain there was a parliamentary inquiry in the United Kingdom that led to some important changes and i think we will see the same here they are many months away that there is a different priority which is the medical priority. There is cultural power in the media if you dont like for your children what you find on tv. You cant just go find your own social media platform or movie studio. That is power but for americans the basis of the american creed of republican liberty you could not trust concentrated power of any kind they didnt have media back then it was political power and diffusing power and checks and balances in and of itself we have lost this with a narrative its all about money and if we centralize power to give a 500dollar tax credit every year then you should be happy. I yam not offend one a fan of anxiety it is much more complicated and difficult not just having a good job or decent wage but also looking outside your door to the Community Thriving and now it is all closed up to find out one of your kids friends has died of an overdose. It still restricts them with that feeling of losing power of your own life. So i make this point a fair amount i will make it here again you have to understand the purpose of the narrative the trump voters were motivated by pure racism and bad people you have to care about their concerns or their worries we know two things substantially the trump vote with the manufacturing jobs which they have written about. We also know it was heavily related and tied to the rise called the depth of despair we see the rise of opioid related death also a significant shift from romney to trump and 2016 if youre focused on the fact everybody is racist but member of the elite is concerned about actually calls the Opioid Epidemic to flood the communities with drugs and if we dont talk about that and trump voters racism and that the elites are already winning the past few decades t. See all the book tv and cspan products available. Good afternoon. I am the i am the director of the Washington Institute for International Public affairs. I am so delighted to be here today to celebrate killer hide, a fantastic new book by peter andreas. Let me just say as a student of Chinese Affairs i hardly need to be told about the importance of the relationship between drugs and war. Of course i