Simone Grant

Musselman, Project 3 Draft 3

4/7/15 Word Count: 1273
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic
By David Quammen, 587 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $19.86

David Quammens Spillover is an amazing book, but it takes a morbid sort of personality
to truly enjoy it. David talks of his adventures in Australia identifying an obscure Hendra virus,
trekking through the forests of Africa to uncover the secrets of Ebola, and roaming a south
Chinese market to find the source of SARS. These circumstances weave together to form a book
of strange viral fairytales, with the moral of the stories being Davids conclusions and his
thoughts on the future of human diseases.
Each chapter in Spillover begins with something being slightly amiss in one part of the
world: an accidental death here or there, or an illness that wont fade away. Nothing is major in
these isolated cases, and typically people tend to ignore them. But they become an outbreak,
something that affects (or kills) huge numbers of people at a time. An investigation is launched
to identify the source of these outbreaks, and David tags along to many of these investigations,
interviewing scientists and survivors. The detective work doesnt always lead to definite
answers, but it does lead to a more solid understanding of the virus, the way it works, and where
it possibly came. Throughout each chapter, the reader is led back to a certain, central point of the
book: zoonosis.
Zoonotic diseases are diseases which can pass from animals to humans. Transmission can
occur through bites, eating animal meat, and accidental mixing of bodily fluids such as blood and

urine. These diseases can travel from animal to animal throughout an ecosystem, like the Hendra
virus introduced in Chapter 1, which transfers from bats to horses and then to humans.
David Quammen introduces each zoonotic disease as a story on its own, creating a
disjointed point of view. Spillover really does read like a storybook, with many different tales
coming together. This does take away from the readability somewhat, and I had to take a break
or two between some of the meatier stories. But what Spillover lacks in continuity it makes up
for in the first-hand accounts and interviews from people all over the world. The scientific
concepts are explained in a way that is very understandable (even to those who are not scienceminded) and with the personal experiences surrounding the viruses, anyone who has an interest
in deadly microorganisms will enjoy Spillover.
Despite the new take on it, zoonosis itself isnt new. Zoonoses have been around since
humans were primarily a hunter-gatherer society. Back then, pandemics and epidemics tended to
die out quickly because of the small number of humans in a population. But the cases of viral
outbreaks and the scale at which they occur are much higher now, and there is no formally
agreed reason for why the rates are rising. David, however, has a theory: as humans grow larger
and larger in numbers, we expand and progress in this world and we have disturbed areas that
were previously untouched. David uses the analogy of a tree: We shake the trees and things fall
out. As we move further into unexplored areas, pathogens interact with animals which, of
course, interact with us. And then pandemics and epidemics occur, and thats where the
problems start.
The swine flu, otherwise known as influenza A or H1N1, has caused over 17,000 deaths and
is now picking up steam in India. An Ebola outbreak in West Africa, one of the largest in history,
has a current death tool of around 10.588, a number which is constantly updating as it is still

occurring. If that werent enough, the anti-vaccine movement is making things worse, with cases
of measles and whooping cough rising dramatically in 2014 thanks to anti-vaxxers.
Despite this, our numbers continue to grow. The final fairytale of this book is perhaps the
most chilling, and involves caterpillars. Tent catepillars, or malacosoma disstria, existed in huge
numbers in Australia, to the point where they crowded trees and the sound of their excrement
formed background noise like cicadas do in the American south.

One day, just one caterpillar ate something it shouldnt have. Its entire body exploded, on a
leaf, which many other caterpillars ate. Within 2 to 3 years there were hardly any caterpillars left.
There was an outbreak, and nature made a counter effort to extinguish it. Just like that.
It is clear that nature has its own system of checks and balances. Yet, by all accounts in the
history of the world and certainly in the view of Quammen, Human beings are an outbreak.
Quammen does not believe that a major outbreak of any sort of viruses will affect us
immediately, or within our lifetimes. He does not seem to think that it is impossible, either. It
does raise the question of when, and what measures humanity will take in the years to come. Part
of why Spillover is so morbid is this sense of hopelessness present in the reader since the moral
is first introduced. Overpopulation is the problem. Progress is the problem.

Every 2 weeks, humans add the equivalent of the city of LA to our numbers. The human
race is growing exponentially, due to the rising life expectancy, medical breakthroughs, and
increasing access to food. However, the clearly increasing population is not necessarily a good
thing if the threat of disease becomes more and more prevalent. Stephen Hawking once said, in
response to a query on what worries him, My biggest worry is population growth, and if it
continues at the current rate, we will be standing shoulder to shoulder in 2600. Something has to
happen, and I dont want it to be a disaster. Unfortunately, at the rate were going, a disaster
looks like exactly what is going to happen. Near the end of the book, Quammen interviewed a
scientist named Dr. Weber, who talked about the bird flu: There is the possibility of disaster.
Thats really the bottom line with H5N1. So long as its out there in the human population, there
is the theoretical possibility that it can acquire the ability to transmit human-to-human. And then
God help us.
So how are we going to fix this? Well, there are methods that have been introduced in the
past to control overpopulation. Lets name a few: forced sterilization, mandatory abortions, and
laws that prevent or punish for having larger families (which increases the rate of infanticide). If
those are less appealing, perhaps we could try the radical, extreme solutions such as widespread,
free contraception and family planning education. Its that or face a fate similar to the liquefied
caterpillars still on the trees of Australia.
So far, President Obama has proposed a new law under Obamacare which makes free birth
control a standard for women. The law has faced criticism by many religious figures and certain
republicans, likely a similar group of people who think that women should have no choices in
abortion issues. Setbacks like this also often occur whenever a population control law is
suggested, and population control is its own topic in ethical discussions. However, I would

certainly prefer to discuss these issues and options now, while we still have the chance to do so.
Viruses certainly do not have an ethical code to follow.
All in all, Spillover is an thought-provoking novel that combines history, 1st person accounts,
and a dash of humor to create an engaging fairytale of viruses. It seeks to inform, but it does not
make any serious attempts to predict the future. Whatever happens [after that] will depends
on science, politics, social mores, public opinion, public will, and other forms of human
behavior. It will depend on how we citizens respond.

Sources Used
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Why Population Matters. World Population Awareness. 17 Mar. 2015. Web. 25 Mar.
2015. <http://www.overpopulation.org/whyPopMatters.html>.
Zoonosis History. News Medical. Azo Network, 1 Feb. 2011. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
<http://www.news-medical.net/health/Zoonosis-History.aspx>.
Mandel, Ananya. Current Pandemics. News Medical. AZO Network, 17 Oct. 2014.
Web. 8 Apr. 2015. <http://www.news-medical.net/health/Current-Pandemics.aspx>.
2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 7
Apr. 2015. Web. 8 Apr. 2015. <http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-westafrica/>.
Salzberg, Steven. Anti-Vaccine Movement Causes Worst Measles Epidemic In 20
Years. Forbes. Forbes, 1 Feb. 2015. Web. 8 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/02/01/anti-vaccine-movement-causesworst-measles-epidemic-in-20-years/>.