Considering The Wisdom of Plagues
BOOK REVIEW: The Wisdom of Plagues: Lessons from 25 Years of Covering Pandemics
By Donald G. McNeil, Jr./Simon & Schuster
Reviewed by: Kevin J. Buckley, Ph.D,
The Reviewer — Kevin J. Buckley retired from the CIA as a member of the Senior Intelligence Service. He is a recipient of the CIA Career Intelligence Medal and served for over 24 years supporting the Intelligence collection effort in East Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Europe and Eurasia.
REVIEW — Donald McNeil brings his highly developed reporter’s skill and years of experience to a subject that most of us would prefer to forget. Indeed, reading this well-crafted and highly personal work resurrected my own feelings of dread, sorrow and rage regarding the Covid pandemic. The Wisdom of Plagues is a book that deserves to be read from Lessons Learned, Not Learned and Ignored perspectives.
Though not presented as a topic in the national security domain, the connection between pandemics and our national wellbeing writ large is obvious. Mr. McNeil makes a careful, well-sourced and sobering analysis of the issues involved.
The book is divided into four parts: Initial Reflections, The Tangled Roots of Pandemics, The Human Factors That Spread Pandemics and finally Some Ways to Head Off Future Pandemics.
Part One is the most interesting as it traces the growth of author’s career as a reporter covering global health for The New York Times. He was posted to Johannesburg and observed first hand the devastation of HIV-AIDS, the cost of pharmaceuticals, the politics, policies, non-government organizations (NGOs), indifference of the developed world and so on. The global health beat was a journalistic footnote at that time and McNeil reflect on how the experience changed him and educated him to the issues. When the Covid pandemic became the global issue that it is, the author went from a highly experienced reporter in an area that was typically ignored for bigger stories to the right person at the right time. Mr. McNeil’s personal reflections and broad experience here establish his solid bona fides. He knows that of which he speaks.
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The section on the roots of pandemics is an instructive review of the roots of these global phenomena, SARS, Monkeypox, statistics on vaccinations, infection and death rates across the globe, and how different countries responded. A brief history of how all this may have started discusses the “man-meat boundary” (the killing and eating of wild animals in parts of Africa where access to safer sources of meat does not exist) and that practice as a transmission vehicle for mutating pathogens.
Poverty and underdevelopment are at the base of this. A chapter in this section, “Why No Pandemic Will Be Our Last”, is a concise and well sourced review of various factors enabling the spread of AIDS, SARS, MERS and the Zika virus. It is a complex situation that the author explains clearly and effectively. The closing sentences in the section are most instructive: “Nothing is fixed. New threats are evolving all the time. We must be constantly on guard.” There is no hysterical edge to this conclusion. The author’s analysis of the data clearly leads to this conclusion.
The longest section of the book presents in detail how human behavior is complicit in the spread of pandemics. With apologies to Walt Kelly and Pogo “We have met the enemy and he is us.” (Google it. The phrase is circa 1970). It is a laundry list presented in detail about how institutions and the human condition mitigate effective responses to the recent Covid emergency and previous pandemics. The usual suspects are identified: Greed, willful ignorance, denial, political opportunism and rumor mongering. At this moment in history the rejection of solid science for conspiracy theories and the disturbing erosion of trust in sources of fact and knowledge are presented in detail. The difficulty that a decentralized health care and policy apparatus has in quickly responding to a crisis is noted. Finally, understanding and staying ahead of new viral mutations and the diseases that can be spread is an ongoing challenge. I finally understand what “NOVEL” means in the naming of Corona Virii. Novel as in new and unknown.
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The final section of the work discusses in detail suggestions to avoid or at least mitigate the effects of the next pandemic. It impresses me as a necessary but tall and longrange wish list that includes cheaper medicines, effective mandates, improved disease surveillance mechanisms, revamping our totally inadequate and disorganized public health bureaucracy. The inadequate ability to mount an effective response these crises is literally killing us.
Mr. McNeil opens and closes his book with passages designed to have us think and reflect on pandemics and their potential to kill us. He offers some hope.
In the opening the author cites an observation share with him by Dr. Michael J. Ryan, of the World Health Organization: “You…spend billions on preparing for war and fighting terrorism…and pennies on disease. But you cannot negotiate with a virus. And viruses kill more people than these ever will”.
At the book’s close McNeil writes: “The blunt truths that science produces-and that good journalism defends-do tend to win out….albeit slowly. I’ll wait.”
Overall, The Wisdom of Plagues is well-sourced, clear and a compelling if sobering read. Highly recommended.
The Wisdom of Plagues earns a prestigious 4 out of 4 trench coats
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