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Smallpox: The Death of a Disease - The Inside Story of Eradicating a Worldwide Killer Hardcover – June 23, 2009
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This spellbinding book is Dr. Henderson’s personal story of how he led the World Health Organization’s campaign to eradicate smallpox—the only disease in history to have been deliberately eliminated. Some have called this feat "the greatest scientific and humanitarian achievement of the past century."
In a lively, engrossing narrative, Dr. Henderson makes it clear that the gargantuan international effort involved more than straightforward mass vaccination. He and his staff had to cope with civil wars, floods, impassable roads, and refugees as well as formidable bureaucratic and cultural obstacles, shortages of local health personnel and meager budgets. Countries across the world joined in the effort; the United States and the Soviet Union worked together through the darkest cold war days; and professionals from more than 70 nations served as WHO field staff. On October 26, 1976, the last case of smallpox occurred. The disease that annually had killed two million people or more had been vanquished–and in just over ten years.
The story did not end there. Dr. Henderson recounts in vivid detail the continuing struggle over whether to destroy the remaining virus in the two laboratories still that held it. Then came the startling discovery that the Soviet Union had been experimenting with smallpox virus as a biological weapon and producing it in large quantities. The threat of its possible use by a rogue nation or a terrorist has had to be taken seriously and Dr. Henderson has been a central figure in plans for coping with it.
New methods for mass smallpox vaccination were so successful that he sought to expand the program of smallpox immunization to include polio, measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccines. That program now reaches more than four out of five children in the world and is eradicating poliomyelitis.
This unique book is to be treasured—a personal and true story that proves that through cooperation and perseverance the most daunting of obstacles can be overcome.
- Print length334 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPrometheus Books
- Publication dateJune 23, 2009
- Dimensions5.6 x 0.94 x 8.4 inches
- ISBN-101591027225
- ISBN-13978-1591027225
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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There has been no greater medical --or humanitarian--miracle in modern times than the eradication of smallpox, history's deadliest infectious disease. Now, for the first time, we learn the inside story from D. A. Henderson, the legendary public health official who led the global effort that brought this miracle about. Smallpox--The Death Of A Disease is more than a riveting account of the day-to-day struggle for international cooperation in a divided world; it also offers a winning blueprint for the great medical challenges to come." --David Oshinsky, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in History for Polio: An American Story
"Thorough, balanced and well-crafted, Smallpox--The Death of a Disease is the story of one of mankind's greatest achievements. The success of the eradication campaign is a testament to the difference the global public health community can make when it truly comes together for a common purpose. Whether one speaks of HIV/AIDS or Neglected Tropical Diseases, the solution lies in allies and adversaries working as one to alleviate suffering and save lives. This is the lesson to be drawn from Dr. Henderson's excellent book." --Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services (2001-2005); Governor of Wisconsin (1987-2001)
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Prometheus Books; First Edition (June 23, 2009)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 334 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1591027225
- ISBN-13 : 978-1591027225
- Item Weight : 1.36 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.6 x 0.94 x 8.4 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,419,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #624 in Viral Diseases (Books)
- #756 in Communicable Diseases (Books)
- #1,545 in History of Medicine (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
D. A. Henderson, MD is currently professor of medicine and public health at the University of Pittsburgh and a distinguished scholar at the Center for Biosecurity in Baltimore. He is a professor and former dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. He served as Life Sciences Adviser to President G. H. W. Bush and was the first director of the newly created Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness in the Department of Health and Human Services. He is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science plus many other awards. He has received the Japan Prize and has been knighted by the King of Thailand.
Photo by Will Kirk, John Hopkins University.
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Henderson organized this book chronologically with plenty of illustrative, entertaining vignettes. I found it more useful to organize the things I learned categorically rather than chronologically.underplayed
Scientific: smallpox has several attributes that made it specially vulnerable to eradication. There is only one infected species. There are no asymptomatic carriers. Smallpox symptoms are easy to recognize.
Technological: from antiquity, variolation provided protection at the expense of infecting others during the variolation time. Jenner developed the first effective vaccine by working from a folk medicine story. Later vaccines were not heat-stable (decayed at room temperature). The most modern vaccine, freeze-dried, was heat-stable (I would have called it "room-temperature-stable"). That enabled the creation and distribution of enough doses for the whole world.
Technology 2: several generations of vaccination equipment culminating in the bifurcated needle which reduced the vaccine dose needed by 4x compared to previous needles.
Politics: initial funding and resource allocation. Working around reporting systems that lied, national health systems that hid patients (!), bureaucrats who know how to say "no" but don't know how to say "yes", people who want to do things differently or not at all. Working with both sides in countries embroiled in civil war.
Strategy: mass vaccinations vs surveillance and quick-response teams. Responding to waves of refugee migration and nomadic people.
Logistics: a great challenge. The programs in many countries took longer, cost more. Transportation broke down. Communication was difficult. Perpetual scrounging for resources. Lots of surprises.
Recruiting: finding people who can do the job and will work hard and cheerfully -- even when the job is dirtier, harder, and longer than everybody signed up for. Some field agents were enormously more effective than average. How do you find and keep people like that?
Resolution: many of the people in the smallpox program went on to other work after the eradication of smallpox. Henderson thought he would. But even though people don't get infected anymore, someone still has to work on smallpox.
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Two parts of the book bothered me. First, I think Henderson gave too little consideration to the valid points made by anti-eradication doctors. It was not at all certain that eradication would work. Second, in several parts of the book, Henderson laments that other humanitarian programs wouldn't share resources with his program -- but he gives no instance of any other program asking his smallpox teams for resources and his teams' response. In countries suffering from droughts, famines, civil wars, and mass migrations, surely some other groups asked his teams for transportation and other resources? How did the smallpox teams reply?
Overall, though, this book was excellent. Thank you, D. A. Henderson, for your work. And thank you for setting down hundreds of pages of information accessible to a layman.
This story is no different. The Eradicators did a service to humanity that unfortunately, many today take for granted. They prevented the deaths of hundreds of millions. They prevented the pain and suffering of untold spouses, families, and friends who had to watch a victim die. They prevented the pain and suffering of untold millions who would have lived on after infection with permanent disfigurement, blindness, and more. What they did was thought impossible, yet it did not stop them.
This book chronicles the story of The Eradicators, and what they did for us. Though slightly dry in the middle of the book, when the author is describing eradication country by country, I found the rest of the book fantastic.
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However, two major gripes: the text refers to ‘plates’ as in (see Plate 7) indicating there should be colour photographs somewhere in the book. There are none in the paperback version, this is highly irritating. And the new Introduction by Phillip K Peterson, MD, contains the ridiculously silly error of getting the name of both the ‘father of vaccinology’ and the boy he immunised with cowpox incorrect! It was Edward Jenner and James Phipps, correctly stated in the Foreward by Richard Preston which follows directly afterwards. Nice work editor. 🙄