The story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus there been one of the longest titles at hand, why did you write this . Guest it seemed something they would get sick and get better again. Iive never been interested at all. I wrote an article for the times about a miraculous discovery. Theres a guy at Walter Reed Medical Center and he does Science Magazine and somehow managed to get some lung tissues from a soldier that died in 1918 and the next issue there were still fragments and when i interviewed him about his work, he told me about the pandemic of 1918 and i was stunned. Id nevei had never heard of ang like this. It was the worst thing in history. If told so many people that if Something Like that came today if that killed more people than the top ten killers wrapped together, 1. 5 million mortality rate. And i found out by looking at papers by the centers for Disease Control 99 of the people that i and the epidemic were under 65 so it was a devastating epidemic and there was this idea there was such an incredible serendipity involved somebody had some lon lung tisse but still had asked the question how good and influenza virus become such a killer and could it happen again and if so would you recognize it in time. Cspan ten to 20 Million People died. Guest they keep raising the number upward. People now think 40 million is an underestimate and i heard there was a meeting people that were interested in the fluids of africa were saying they think the true number worldwide is closer to 100 billion possibly 20 million died in the subcontinent alone. Cspan is influenza . Guest id lives in the human lungs and the they take it into the virus factories if it gets him like any other if takes the cells and forces it to make new viruses and then it dies. Its a simple little thing. Cspan what happens to the body than . Guest before hallmarks of influenza i heard. One of them is you get a fever and take today. You have muscle aches and pains, fever and a cough. I think i had it once. Cspan so you dont know what it feels like. Guest i thought this is the flu, five days of torture. I still remember those muscle aches. Cspan 1918, where did it start . Guest the first time it came into the United States and a biin abig way it showed up ate called camp devin near boston and people thought at the time they couldnt believe that it was Something Like the flu you. It was during world war i there were these rumors that there had been clouds over Boston Harbor they put something into bayer aspirin that would kill. This is the most horrible thing anybody had ever witnessed. There were so many young soldiers dying but they had special trains to take away the dead. Dead. The bodies were stacked up and it was so shocking the Surgeon General and the contingent of three of the leading doctors in the United States to go out and say what is going on at camp devin. One wrote a memoir in this i cant even bear to think about this. It was in the fall of 1918 when the deadly influenza virus demonstrated superiority in the taking of human life. He said these are memories burned into his brain he would like to remove if he possibly could. And he described what would happen when they wanted to see an autopsy he said that there are so many dead they had to step over the bodies just to get into the autopsy room. It hadnt been removed yet. And then when they watched the autopsy took place, the doctor wouldve been owould open up tha young man and their work is lungs heavy in his body filled with fluid with a useless. He essentially died because his lungs filled with fluid and the doctor there who depend pin much imperturbable, nothing could shake him he turned and said this must be a plague. He couldnt believe it. Cspan in the buck, while could you explain what they are in the bottom picture. Guest these are some of the samples of lung tissue. It was dissing how did we ever know and what was miraculous there is a military warehouse people describe it as the library of congress. Started by Abraham Lincoln and every time that a knowledge of the doctor does an autopsy, he puts some of the tissue into the persons medical in the warehouse. The people at the time they took little snippets of the tissue and sent them to the warehouse. He asked me if he could find some lung tissue into the picture that you just saw is of the little pieces with the tissue in and outside of it after all these years there is still the virus in 1918. Cspan cspan going back to this pathology institute, have you been there . Guest yes i have. It is a corrugated warehouse thats technically burning down and they have box after box and there is a man. His job i would like to get lung samples of people who died from influenza 1918 and who died a very, very quickly because they did with the person that had gotten the virus and then lingered. He could get a computer printout of where to look and end them are samples. Theres brain tissue and all sorts of stuff and this was lung tissue. Cspan user Abraham Lincoln started it. Further samples from a war . Guest after the civil war and so on. It had been accumulating like a packrat. It was a brilliant idea because when they started this, how would you know what they would use it for. And the idea no one ever found a human influenza virus. So the idea somebody could make use of this material was just brilliant. Cspan i know im jumping way ahead but do they know what caused the influenza of 1918 . Guest they know that it was the flu virus. They had long samples of those that had the gene and then. It was pushing the limits of molecular biology and it takes a long time and its described as putting together a very detailed mosaic. They had gotten them put together now and they are taken in the order of the likelihood, an easy answer. Unfortunately the first three there is related to th the birtf my recent pig virus that happened provided the answer you get to why it was dangerous. Cspan cspan let me attempt a couple of questions. Theres only one person that works there. Guest one person that i saw but im sure that theres others. Cspan how big of a facility wasnt . Guest just over the border. One of the things i must admit was kind of a drama. Theres somthere is some persons in here that are fairly dramatic. Were you surprised at the competition going on . Guest i knew there was a story. I wouldnt writ wouldnt wake uw there was a story because this chapter after chapter for me it isnt something i would pick up and read just because i wanted to read it so that is what appealed to me there was a competition that showed the strengths and weaknesses of scientific data. Cspan with book is this for you . Guest commercial and noncommercial i guess commerci commercial. Cspan cspan how long did you work for the times and wher times anu before that . Guest Science Magazine. Cspan how did you get to science . Guest you dont want to know. I wanted to be a writer but i was studying science and at this time i was at graduate school studying mathematics. I was going to get a ph phd and decided to get a masters instead. If you science gave me a job that wasnt as a writer, it was a boring job collecting manuscripts and i said you have to understand im doing this to sort of get my way into the writing department. Shortly after i took it i said i would like to write an article for you on my own time for free and they said okay and they published it and i did another and another. Cspan lawyer is your hometown . Guest baltimore. Cspan where did you go to school . Guest university of maryland and then in the graduate program in molecular biology before they decided that was not for me. Cspan and its what kind of person . Guest is a subscription magazine for scientists and policy makers at the heavy news section that is supposed to be written for anybody to read. It can get kind of technical but the idea is to write so that a physicist that wants to know what they are doing in molecular biology doesnt have to know the stuff that went up to the discovery. Its like writing a normal story all they have to do is read it. Its owned by the American Association of the advancement of science. There is a british magazine that has mostly scientific articles. But cspan going back again with this more devastating than the one we hear about a . Guest there is no comparison. When we think about it i think i said earlier 1. 5 million americans die of Something Like this came by. Into difficulties and 20,000 by end of most of them are very old or have some other chronic medical condition. Here 99 are under age 65 so it is that is a very peculiar death curve shaped like a w. The very young died than people between the ages of 20 to 40. Then at the end of some other people died. Cspan i would like to ask you to read this if you dont mind some of the authors brother died of this and where did he write this . Guest i asked a number of people and they said that the description wasnt fictionalized its what happened when his brother died of the flu. Cspan could you tell us why you put this in the . Guest can i tell you i first . When i talk about the flu or people that are living today talk about the flu, it is almost impossible for us to imagine what it was like. I tried as much as i could type the words down of the people that have been there because when you have been there and have seen it, it has an emotion i cant capture and i dont think anybody else ive spoken to has been able to capture. Of all the descriptions ive read of people dying of the flu, this one really touched me. It almost brought me to tears. It was the saddest thing and you can imagine yourself in the room watching somebody die like this. I cant forget this and thats why i put it in. To be distorted and attach. And that has turned gray with two red flags. And to be a call the corrupt vitality for the constant grimace of torture and then to get the air into his lungs and there in the room to orchestrate everyone that is in it and then to grow delirious and by 4 00 oclock then had brief periods of consciousness and delirium his breathing was easier there were songs from old and forgotten. To a popular song of wartime in his eyes are almost closed with that sensibility and death and then to stay with them that night even though they did not believe in god or prayer. And then whoever tonight is showing the way he heard only the dying breath. And then suddenly call the family the body appeared to grow rigid before him. And then along a powerful way to be filled in the one moment and goes without support. And then as he has lived. The saying in the book . I know. And another statistic 25 or 28 percent of the people . Yes normally only a very small percentage actually get the flu they say they get of a normally is Something Else but it would just spread throughout the population and then it was 25 times more deadly than normal flu. Here is a photograph and doctor giving him a shot with the story behind this quick. In 1976 they thought it was related to a flu that was infected at that time because the huge numbers but then scientists became convinced and in 1976 to go out with the marked unit because nobody knew when to join them. And then had swine flu they finally discovered. So at the very end of the flu season and to protect the population so what should we do . Do we say wait until next season to see if theres a problem . Are we say we should protect everybody with the entire nation. They said we cant take a chance because if it is back again because people will be dying. So there is a decision to make it was a campaign that didnt work too well. Then tried to give his own flu shot. It turned out there was no swine flu epidemic. It is totally unclear how we try to get it in with that virus that indicated he may have gotten one but nobody died. Nobody was getting sick from the flu. And then they had a vaccine from the flu strain that was not part of the problem and around the same time and then everybody started to get immunized and they said the vaccine is killing people. So there is a lot of fear in this vaccine even to this day because still so many people say the flu vaccine they never get the right strain. The vaccine is worse than the disease and can make you sick. Back and started after 1976. How do they know . First of all how do you know what shot you get a couple months ago . There is a group of experts with International Surveillance that goes on all the time. And then with the previous years. In 1918 was the example. But then to think they will be infected. Cspan you say the province right above hong kong in Southern China. Some people say that every major epidemic or pandemic around the world has begun in Southern China. There is a reason why it is a hot spot for flu that in order to really sweep the world is so different but then the birds of all kind they dont even get sick. It lives in their intestine. The bird family is really different than people. But what is that count . I know i cant answer that. [laughter] but i cannot say he was only six. But then to kill the virus you kill the pig . Only fits alive. You dont have to worry and in Southern China what they do and then the ducks are on the rice patties and then when they harvest the rice they put the ducks back to the some animals including the pigs. Now the pig has the duck flu virus. Than the people can get it from the pigs and then it starts there. And in 1918. That there are Historical Records thats it for something that looks like the flu. Thinking that Southern China. You say hong kong had a big scare in 1997. Do we know about that here . I never think they were overreacting but at the time there was a flu that was killing young people they were getting really sick and dying. Cspan you mention one young bo boy. He got sick and died there was a big investigation what kind of flu he had the turns out he had a bird flu. That is really weird because they dont normally affect people. But there was have 1918 on their mind with a pandemic. Nobody in schools just little kids. There was a big investigation. And then the scientist says okay. And then a few months later young people dying of the flu. And that was really terrifying because something that happened in hong kong. And then with a very able not to expect that investigation. But it was even killing chickens the big fear was if we dont see anything if it infects a person and in their lungs with that bird type of flu to infect people and then to protect the world the Hong Kong Government ordered everys chicken to be killed because people like to buy their chickens and then to go to the Grocery Store and buy them. All the wet markets they are in cages and everyone was killed. At the time i thought it was weird now i think its a good idea. Sees one. Cspan how do we get the flu . When somebody around us has it. How does it start the very first time somebody gets the flu . Do they eat it . They breathe it in her they get the virus they touch their nose and mouth. And then they think its because we are inside more and also when the air is dry. And then other than the flu shot to protect yourself . So wash your hands a lot. I dont know. Cspan do you think flu shots are a good idea . I didnt have one until this year. I think why was i so stupid . I have children who are 18 and 21. They are in college i said call me that you got it and they thought i was being ridiculous and then they call. Cspan your husband got hit . Yes. He is a mathematician it works for a nonprofit society and philadelphia we live in princeton but he works in philadelphia. Cspan when you had this idea what year was it to write this book . 1988. Cspan when you first call do you call your agent . My agent called me. He called me and said this book flu stuff but it might be really interesting. But i had seen enough pieces from the New York Times that is a story of the beginning and middle and and i was hoping that we could read it like a novel not just a textbook. Cspan when did you know you had something you need . When i got the contract. [laughter]. With the virus in alaska. Heres a picture. In 1950 your 611th sent to alaska. Cspan this picture is from where . They are two of them. Thats in the same year and below that in the laboratory almost every eskimo and they have died of the flu. Did the whole village go . In 1918. And a pathologist and was just going to study for one year at the university of iowa. So he decided what he would do before he started school to travel to every state so they got a car and drove around and ended up in alaska. Then he met a paleontologist going around and then they said there is a terrible tragedy in 1918 the only way we will ever know what happened is a somebody can find somebody was buried in the permafrost and then find out what it was. Will i know how to do this. I can find out where the eskimo goes and people could see the permafrost and go out there so he did do this and went to alaska where he thought he could find from the 1918 flu. And then the mass grave was exactly right. And then from 1918 and then to make a vaccine we never have to suffer like this again. But he did to bring it back with them to iowa. And today to be horrified they were trying to grow the 1918 virus but hasnt thought about the consequences and then kept injecting chicken eggs. But Nothing Happened so he concluded it was dead but he never forgot that grave in the 1918 flu and always swore that one day when science advanced enough, he word try again. Cspan the 1918 flu and then you have the 1951 trip by the scientist. Where is he located . In the San Francisco area. But always thinking about the flu worried about molecular biology and the time for him to write back to alaska to do something. Cspan a jump from 51 through 1955 . On 1995 that was out here at the institute is he a military man . Know he is a civilian. Cspan is a medical doctor . Both a medical doctor and phd scientists. He stumbled into this with a career a brilliant man and was interested in influenza because what they do in the Pathology Lab is answer questions for other people in the military. One of the questions asked is why were they dying . He said he thought they were dying because they were i