Distinctly Montana Magazine

BY DAVID QUAMMEN Q uammen's riveting new book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic (W.W. Norton & Co) traces how most of the infectious diseases that afflict humans—causing weird outbreaks, epidemics, and in some cases global pandem- ics, with millions dead—come to us from wildlife and disturbances of ecosystems. Any such sudden transfer of disease, from one species to another, is known as a "spillover." "It's a frightening and fascinating masterpiece of science reporting that reads like a detective story"— Walter Isaacson. It's a startling, scary book, yet hopeful book that delivers news from the frontlines of public health, deep insight into the workings of science, and all the pleasures of a crackling good read. It makes clear that animal diseases are inseparable from us because we are inseparable from the natural world. DAVID QUAMMEN TALKS ABOUT HIS BOOK We like to think of Montana as a remote and halcyon place, but in today's reality it's very much part of wider worlds—including the world of emerging diseases. Traveling from my home in Bozeman to Central Africa or southern Asia, for instance, as I did often for research on Spillover, takes only about 27 hours. I can be in Kinshasa or Brazzaville or Hong Kong or Singapore, wearing the same shirt and socks, almost before I've begun to stink. These fast connections are very welcome to me when it's time to come home. But they serve as reminder that a dangerous virus, newly emerged from a bat in the Congo or a monkey in Bangladesh, could likewise make the trip quickly, arriving at any Mon- tana airport before the unfortunate person carrying it has had time to get sick and die. Diseases that emerge from wildlife and spill into humans are known as zoonoses. Don't be misled by the slightly technical ring; it's a word of the future, with which we'll all become increasingly familiar. And don't be fooled by the exotic sound of names such as Ebola, West Nile, Machupo, Nipah encephalitis, Kyasanur Forest disease, SARS-coronavirus, and Crimean-Congo hem- orrhagic fever. One aspect of globalization is the globalization of disease. Not every scary new virus travels well on airplanes, but some do. And when the next fearful pandemic David Quammen of Bozeman, the award- winning author of The Song of the Dodo, Monster of God, and The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, is also a Contribut- ing Writer for National Geographic. Spillover chronicles his quest to understand disease spillovers of the past, of the present, and what scientists foresee as the Next Big One. emerges, we can be confident that Mon- tana will be included. I don't say this to make you paranoid or hypochondriacal. I merely mean: You have as much reason as anyone for want- ing to understand the realities of how these diseases emerge and travel. Knowl- edge empowers. Knowledge can help keep you healthy. Knowledge, as revealed by a quest, can even be fun. That's the point of Spillover, just pub- lished after six years of work. It's a scientific travelogue, a journey of discov- ery through faraway parts of the world, made in company with the scientists who study these diseases that are discovering us. The book begins in eastern Austra- lia, touches down in a Congo forest, on a rooftop in Bangladesh, in bat caves of southern China, at a restaurant in Borneo, in a laboratory in the Netherlands, at the CDC in Atlanta, and among Lyme- disease researchers in suburban New York, finally coming to its end on the south side of Bozeman, where a certain elm tree reminds me of a certain lesson in ecology, population dynamics, and humility. I'll leave the details of that home les- son for you to read in my final chapter, if you're so inclined. I don't want to give away the ending. But I can tell you the theme of the book: We are all in this together. www.distinctlymontana.com 67 Lynn Donaldson

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