Journalist Richard Preston is the author of the best seller The Hot Zone, about the ebola virus. His new book, The Demon in the Freezer, is about the smallpox virus and the scientists at the CDC who are working with live smallpox in order to develop a drug that could fight it -- should the virus be used in biological warfare. The smallpox virus was eradicated from humans in 1979. Now it can be found -- officially -- in two high-security freezers: one at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and at Vector Institute in Siberia.
Copyright 2002 Fresh Air
