![]() ![]() ![]() Today, more than 25 million people have died from AIDS. A virus does not care whose cells carry it, as long as it can multiply and adapt and evolve and thrive. ![]() Quammen spins this moment into a speculative and spellbinding narrative that erases the line between humans and other animals. Such a discovery may have given rise to the greatest spillover in history, nearly a century ago, when HIV leapt from a chimp into somebody’s cut finger in southeastern Cameroon. In parts of Africa, villagers prize every food they can get, even if that means a chimp carcass found rotting in the forest. Book sales have spiked since 2020, and what Quammen said is incredibly relevant. ![]() In case you were wondering, the meat “was mild, subtle, faintly sweet. David Quammens book caused people worldwide to see the need to learn as much about zoonoses as possible. (Bamboo rats make an appearance on Quammen’s dinner plate. In China, the “Era of Wild Flavor” led to trafficking and consuming of practically every meat possible, the weirder the better. Often people deliberately make things worse. It’s that close proximity between animal and human, the constant pressing of 7 billion people into habitats and regions once left well enough alone, that radically raises the risk of spillover. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |