It's Only Human

The story of Andrew Speaker and his flight from Italy to the US with his new bride when they learned he had a rare form of drug resistant TB reminds me of the story behind the Richard Preston book Hotzone.

When it comes to communicable disease, the real issue we need to deal with, on all levels, is human behavior. These organisms really rely on the behaviors of their hosts to stay alive. And, as we all know, it is hard to change behavior. Humans react more often than they think and then act in a rational manner. And it doesn't matter who you are or what you know.

In Hotzone, the real story is that trained scientists who knew the risk they potentially posed to family, friends and strangers reacted as human beings when they were exposed to an airborne form of Ebola. Policy and Procedure demanded that they isolate themselves.  What did they do?

They went home, the thought of being isolated was fearful and would, I think, also make the risk REAL. So, they talked themselves down and out of danger and they went home. As it turned out this particular airborne Ebola strain was contagious and fatal to the monkeys but not to humans. The people WERE exposed as confirmed by blood-work but did not become ill or transmit the disease.

What could have been a preventable national tragedy was not prevented but  by luck happened to be a non-starter. Andrew Speaker did what most people would have done. It's only human.

Last I knew, the facility where this occured, (in Reston PA I believe), stood deserted, a boogie-man, still feared, still shunned. And, we don't talk about it much any  more.