NEWSWEEK: Why are people so fascinated by viruses these days?
PRESTON: There’s a deep curiosity, there’s a sense of horror. And also I think that in the backs of people’s minds, ever presented, is the AIDS virus.
With all the books, movies and television shows, is this country in the midst of a sort of viral fad? Have we crossed the lie from news stories to deadly viruses as entertainment?
What’s happening in Zaire is only too real. All the popular stuff, including “The Hot Zone” and the movies, are a reflection of a kind of geological shift in scientific perceptions about what’s happening biologically to the human species. There’s a perception that we face unprecedented threats from new, emerging infectious diseases. Popularization is a very good thing.
Is there also a feeling that we humans are pushing the planet too far, with our population growth?
I think we’re out on a limb biologically, as a species, and we’re looking for trouble. The human population has had this tremendous explosion, and then there is this continuing devastation of pristine rain forest.
What can be done about the viral threat, until we find vaccines or cures?
I think the rain-forest problem has to be cured by making people wealthier and giving them some reason to protect and set aside wild areas. One of the big problems in Africa is, “How am I going to cook my food?” They cut down living trees, dry them out and burn them, bit by bit. If these people could just move up a little bit on the economic ladder, if they had a little cooking fuel, they wouldn’t be chopping down all the trees.
What needs to be done on the domestic front?
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta is this absolutely crackerjack government agency. It’s one of the very few agencies in the federal government that really works. But they have terrible funding problems and are spread really thin. And they don’t have any political constituency. There’s no political-action group there hammering away at Congress to give them the money they need to do their job . . . It’s important because we are linked now, biologically, to the rest of the world. If Congress cuts the budget of the CDC, Congress is going to cut the throat of the American people.
How concerned should we be about the outbreak in Zaire?
Ebola has reared its ugly head again, and one of the big concerns is that we still don’t know where it lives in nature. It is a traveler. It is a species jumper. It hides, and you want to find the killer in its hiding place. We don’t think it’s going to go out of Zaire because people don’t live long when they get Ebola. But it’s a classic warning. We’ve had a booming shot across our bows just now, and you could feel the wind whistle as it went by.
