Several times in the history of the country, flu has spread like a pandemic.  It’s caused thousands of deaths.  Is the Center for Disease Control really on top of this?  What will they do if there’s a large outbreak?

My book, Reprisal, is fiction but deals with a pandemic of small pox.  The disease was eliminated from the planet in 1979, and the book is about terrorists who steal a sample of the virus and plot to introduce it into the United States through school children in order to start a pandemic–worse than the flu.  It’s a fast-paced suspense story that you won’t be able to put down.

Now, Amazon Books and my publisher have started a campaign for a free download on Kindle of Reprisal.  For five days only starting today, it’s available for free at:  http://www.amazon.com/Reprisal-ebook/dp/B00486U4OY/ref=sr_1_3_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358133427&sr=1-3&keywords=colin+nelson

Send this to your friends and family.  It’s also available as a download to iPad, smartphones, etc.  by using these free apps:http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

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Scientists in the Netherlands created a virus so toxic that if it ever escaped or was stolen by terrorists, the potential harm would be catastrophic.  The scientists from the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam are set to publish their findings in two scientific journals–making it easy for terrorists to copy and create the virus.  As a result, the American Federal Advisory Board has asked the scientists to leave out critical details.

Which is more important: scientific freedom or protection of the public against a potential doomsday?

To understand the problem, it’s important to know what the scientists are doing.  Many public health officials have been worried that viruses that are common in poultry and birds  (Like the AH5N1) might “jump” to humans and spread easily by coughing or sneezing–that could have devastating effects.  Much worse than small pox–one of the biggest killers in the history of humans.

Usually, the virus doesn’t “jump.”  But what if it somehow mutated to the point that it could jump?  That’s what the scientists in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin were studying.  To accomplish this they bombarded the AH5N1 virus with a variety of genetic changes or mutations.  During this process, they made only five genetic mutations that enabled the virus to spread through the air.  What if terrorist scientists read the proposed publications and created their own lethal virus?

What makes this research troubling to me is that no one,  not even the funding source The National Institutes of Health, ever conducted a rigorous analysis of the potential dangers before giving the money.  And since the mutated virus did not exist prior to the research, why was it done in the first place?

The scientists say their research may lead to the development of the correct antiviral drugs to be used in the event of a breakout.  But if the mutated virus didn’t exist, why would we need an antiviral drug?  Isn’t this backwards?  Dangerously backwards?  Also, there’s no guarantee that any mutations which might occur in Nature will match the mutations developed in the lab–meaning the antiviral drugs wouldn’t work.

What should we do?

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Found in the remains of Egyptian mummies and all over ancient Asia and China, the virus has probably killed more people than wars, famine, and drought have done.  Epidemics in Europe during the Middle Ages affected the course of western history.  Outbreaks of small pox started the decline of the Roman Empire and, once transported to the New World, succeeded in wiping-out most of the native population.  During the early 1700’s in Europe as many as 400,000 people died annually—about the population of Minneapolis.

The war on small pox started with the practice of inoculation against the disease.  Medical practitioners brought the practice from Istanbul to Western Europe and then to the United States by the mid-1700’s.

The process involved pricking the skin of a person and infecting them with a small amount of pox.  It caused them to become slightly ill but also made them immune to the more serious disease when it struck.

During the American Revolution the Continental army attacked the British city of Quebec.  They came close to succeeding until an outbreak of small pox stopped them. The British army had been inoculated, avoided the plague, and repulsed the American’s attack for good.

Edward Jenner didn’t actually discover the vaccine used against small pox, but he was the first scientist to attempt to control an infectious disease—and he was successful.

By the 1950’s small pox had been effectively eradicated from Europe and North America, thanks to public sanitation efforts and the widespread use of the vaccine.  By 1980, after a world-wide campaign, the World Health Organization announced the official end of the disease in the world and recommended that countries cease vaccination—which meant that today no one has immunity to the disease.  (Even for those of us who received vaccine years ago, the protection has decayed.)

Everyone in the world is vulnerable.

With that scary thought in mind, I’ve written a suspense novel about terrorists who steal samples of small pox from a repository in Russia and intend to infect American school children with it—creating hundreds of “weapons of mass destruction.”  It’s called Reprisal.  It takes place in Minneapolis where several Somali boys have disappeared in the past few years.  In my book, they’ve been kidnapped to be used by the terrorists to carry small pox back into the schools and start a pandemic.

Could it happen?  What do you think our most vulnerable spot is for bio-terrorists to attack?  What should we do?

The post The Smallest Terrorist appeared first on Colin T. Nelson.

What’s going on?

Measles has almost been eradicated from the United States.  So why is measles suddenly threatening to breakout?

Health officials point to a simple problem: in recent years, fewer parents chose to vaccinate their children.  It creates a cycle that applies to many infectious diseases like small pox.

Over the years, scientists and people worked together to develop vaccines to kill the disease and, as more people used the vaccine, the disease retreated.  The world-wide campaign against small pox. for instance, succeeded in eradicating the disease from the world–because it no longer had humans hosts to live and spread among.  Measles was close to being eradicated in the U.S.

Ironically, as the disease retreated and fewer people got sick, many others decided they, and their kids, didn’t need to be vaccinated anymore.  As a result, when infected people returned from Africa or Europe, many American citizens didn’t have an immunity to the disease.  Measles seems to be getting a foot-hold here again.

Serious?  Yes–people can die from measles.

Health officials warn that since measles rates are low in the U.S. it wouldn’t take many infections to cause an epidemic.  That’s because of something scientists call the “R-factor.”  It’s a way of measuring how fast the disease will replicate itself in other hosts and, therefore, how fast it will spread–especially if few people were protected by vaccination.

In Minneapolis and Boston, the main fight is to try to contain the outbreak to prevent the spread from growing into a full epidemic.

But…what if terrorists tried to use a disease to kill American citizens?

Defense experts say the biggest hurdle for terrorists would be the “release mechanism.”  How would they release it for infection of the maximum number of people?

Disease like small pox and measles would be easier to release because the viruses are airborne and passed like the common cold.  At least with measles, we have vaccines in great quantities.  That’s not the same for small pox.

My book, Reprisal, is a story about terrorists who use small pox as a weapon of mass destruction by trying to infect many school children to start an epidemic.  If you’re intrigued, or scared, by the idea, check it out at my web site or Amazon books.

Is your family vaccinated against measles?  Are you doing anything to protect yourselves?  Should the government step in and do anything for the people who refuse to get vaccinated?  As doctors warn:  even if you don’t want to do anything for yourself, think of all the other people you will infect if you’re not vaccinated.

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