"Spillover: The Next Human Pandemic" - Hangout with Author David Quammen

Hi everybody. Welcome to beats science in
conjunction with Scientific American

my name is Joanne Manaster
and I am a blogger with

scientific american and along with my
cohost Jeff Shaumeyer we like to

take a little bit of time out
every once and awhile to speak with

a science author of either great books or
blogs or just something for tv

and today we are very fortunate to
have our guest

David Quammen who is an author
and journalist who has written

I read fifteen books but I guess
twelve of them are non fiction

the include "Song of the DoDo"
"The Reluctant Mr. Darwin"

and most recently "Spillover"
which is a work on science history

and human impacts on emerging diseases

particularly the viral diseases

it has been recognized on seven
national and international awards lists

and he has also published a few hundred
pieces of short non fiction featured

articles essays and columns

and all the places we are used
to seeing our great science writers

which included Harper's,
National Geographic, Outside, Esquire

The Atlantic, Rolling Stone

Uh, so uh he occasionally writes op-eds

for the new york times

and reviews books for the new york times

as well. he has been honored
with an academy award

from the american
acadamy of arts and letters

he is a three time recipient of
the national magazine award

he is a contributing writer
for national geographic

and he travels often usually
to wild and remote places

he is currently in ??? Montana

right now if you watch the weather channel
at all and you might be

catching his video series
, based on the book "Spillover"

Called "The Virus Hunters"

and its base don stories from the book

so um, welcome david

//david speaking//
Thank you Joanne very good to be with you

Hi Jeff, nice to be part of this

//Jeff speaking// Its a real pleasure to be talking with you

avid I hope it doesn't make you feel old
or something but I will say I was reading

your books when I was three years old

But I checked the list to make sure

and I have read all of your books

I've enjoyed all of your books

Uh I'm just starting "Spillover"

So that is my latest one to enjoy

I have a little story,
if Joanne reminds me later

to tell about a personal connection

But since we are going to be talking
some about this book

"Spillover" and about the video
series on the weather channel

which is called "The Virus Hunters"

I want to throw you the easy ball and say

lets start by talking about
this idea of spillover

what it is, what Zoonatic
is a new word for

everyone to learn

and why its important so
we have some context

for these things we are going to discuss

//David speaking// Yeah.
That is sort of the ABC's of this

whole subject

The book is about Zooanatic diseases

um, very simply defined
as Zooanosis is an animal

infection tha tis trasmissible to humans

that coul dmean a virus or a bacterium

or a fungus or preon

or worm or what else does that leave

a protozoan, a protist

uh, all the things that infect
humans and other animals

so zooanosis is an animal infection
transmissible to humans

and if it causes symptoms
if it causes problems

once that virus or whatever
it is is transmitted

then we call that a zoanotic disease

Most of I think the figure
is around 60 percent according to

different accounts, of the infectious
diseases known among humans

are zoanatic disease
in the strict and sort of

imminence, in the longer
term you could argue that

all infectious diseases of
humans are ultimately

zoanatic because we are a
relatively young species.

and even our old diseases had to come

from somewhere else

originally

the book is all about the spillover of

infectious agents from non human

animals

into humans

causing in some cases dramatic

disease gruesome pandemics and in the

current years seemingly causing an

increasing drum beat of new

emerging diseases

//Jeff speaking// You had a

log with I had memorized with all of the

things that have been in the news lately

like SARS and Ebola

and HIV

and a much longer list than that

all of these are zoanatic

//david speaking// Thats right yeah

these influenzas are all zoanatic

all of the influenzas emerge ultimately

from wild aquatic birds

there are things, little known things

with names like nepo virus

and hendra virus disease that come out

of animals and get into humans

and cause death on a small scale

but in a very dramatic way

you mentioned ebola, SARS, MERS

out of Saudi Arabia

Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)

is also a zoanosis

so virtually all of these scary new diseases that we hear about

that we read about in the headlines

are zoanatic diseases

because the fact that they are new means

they have come from somewhere else

and gotten into humans

and they turn out ot be really

destructive agents once they are in humans

so in some cases no just very destructive

but also very dangerously transmissible

//Joanne speaking// Right so Ebola

of course is one that is real well known for

being very transmissible and very

devastating but in short loops

it burns itself out

so do you want to talk a little bit about that?

//David speaking// thats right, ebola

ebola has a strange reputation

its a very strange dramatic, gruesome disease

Ebola virus disease

but its not as preternatural

or quiet as gruesome, quiet as bloody

as the public has been led to believe

by some of the books that came out

ten and twenty years ago

the hot zone a riveting book

when it came out twenty years ago

I read it, a lot of other people read it

and in some cases it was the first thing

that anyone learned about ebola virus

I have been back and forth a little bit with

Richard Cresten on this, I don't want to beat up

on him. But i think even he admits now

that there was a bit of exageration

a bit of I won't call it poetic license

but it was portrayed as almost a preternatural

virus that caused horrific bleeding

in virtually every case, people were bleeding out

people were melting down from this virus

well the experts have told me that

is really not the case with ebola

it is a horrible disease

it kills between 60 and 90 percent of the

people it infects

depending on the species of ebola virus

depending on the circumstances

so its a terrible disease

but its not preternatural

it causes organ shut down

it causes something called

disseminated intravascular coagulation

which is a blood symptom

that can in some cases lead to

unusual bleeding but

doesn't necessarily in most cases

it causes a lot of vomitting

and diarrhea and it

causes people to die for those reasons

but its not very transmissible from

human to human

as you said Joanne it burns out

it burns so hot it kills people

so quickly it makes them very sick

so quickly and kills them if its going to

kill them so quickly

that it doesn't spread as well as

some others

also its not an airborne virus

its not transmissible on a sneeze

or a cough

the way the influenzas and some of

the corona viruses are

so ebola virus is the most infamous

of all these things

and its a terrible disease if you are an African villager

but its not the highest on the list

of global threats

//Joanne speaking// So what would be highest

on the list of global threats? I'm going to guess

its a flu, but..

//David speaking// Well flu, a flu would be in that group

Near the end of my research for "Spillover"

I asked some of the experts that I'd

been talking to over the yeras

what do you think the next

big one will look like?

what should we be watchign for?

and they said

well there will be a next big one

its inevitable that there will be

another large pandemic