Larry Brown was still working through his list of American pharmaceutical companies. Having drawn blanks, he broadened things out to medical research companies.
It was when he came across the website of Biox - Boston, Massachusetts that he remembered he’d once met Biox’s president, Josh Ornstein. He phoned and, as luck had it, was put straight through to Josh Ornstein and with pleasantries and introductions over, reminded him of when they’d met before. “The infection control conference in Seattle, Mr Ornstein. Remember?” Having broken the ice, Larry then explained his new job.
“Nigeria is where all those people died, right, Larry?”
“It was me who notified the WHO. Respiratory viruses are right up your street aren’t they Josh? It sounded like viral pneumonia going on what little I was told.”
“Is the WHO doing anything?”
“All they’ve done is ask me to find out some more, but that’s impossible. No one’s interested.
“So, it’s petered out, Larry?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But do you know about the Thai cases?”
“No, but we’ve got a small team at the Bangkok conference,”
Ornstein said.
Larry ended his conversation with Josh Ornstein still without his focus.
***
Kevin Parker was not a churchgoer. His Sunday ritual, if indeed there was one, included checking the Malthus Society website, lunch at the Royal Oak, football on a big screen somewhere, and another bar in the evening. All of it was intended to distract him from remembering it was Monday the next day.It was in the Richmond pub that he often met up with Tom Weston, one of the founder members of the Malthus Society. Tom was a retired biology teacher, a Paul Ehrlich fan, and despite his age, still ran a dusty second-hand bookshop in Clifton that specialised in books about the environment. He had a whole shelf with a sign, saying, Paul Ehrlich. Copies of Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb, written in 1968, had been selling since it was first published.
In it, Ehrlich had argued that the human population was too high already and that, while the level of disaster could be mitigated, humanity could not prevent severe famines, the spread of disease, social unrest, and other negative consequences of overpopulation.
Ehrlich’s views on the situation had evolved over time, but he was always a strong advocate of government intervention in population control.
Tom had built collections of other books and papers dating back to 1948 - the time of the neo-Malthusian debate. His collection included Fairfield Osborn’s Our Plundered Planet and William Vogt’s Road to Survival. Tom had, at one time or another, read them all. But, alongside Thomas Malthus, Ehrlich was the man who most inspired Tom.
In turn, Tom was the man who inspired Kevin and widened his understanding of the subject. Despite the forty-year age gap, Tom was the man Kevin relaxed with, the man he listened to, and the man who he most respected.
Tom was not a man of computers and the internet, but Kevin often had his laptop with him in the pub, and Tom could be persuaded to put on his glasses and read whatever subject of mutual interest Kevin found. Tom had even learned how to scroll.
“What do you make of this then, Tom?” Kevin said, sliding his laptop between their beer glasses.
“Woss that then?” Tom asked in his Bristol accent.
“A posting on the Malthus Society website.”
“Woss it say?”
“Here, read it,” said Kevin and Tom donned his glasses and peered at the screen.
“Can’t read it for love nor money. Too dark for me.”
Kevin brightened the screen and increased the font size. “Try that.”
Tom squinted and scrolled down with an arthritic finger. “Bless my soul,” he said. “I know that fellow.”
“What do you mean you know him?” Kevin asked. “It’s a screen name.”
“But he’s written stuff before. I mean, real stuff, not on computers.
Big fan of Ehrlich. In fact, he was at Stanford.”
“Got anything of his on your bookshelves, Tom?”
“Probably,” said Tom. “His name’s Solomon.”
“That’s his screen name, Tom, not his real name. He’s a Boston group member. What’s his real name?”
“Solomon, you young fool. David Solomon.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Someone brought in a pile of old journals of Clinical Microbiology.
Solomon had written something on viruses that caused respiratory tract infections. It was during the bird flu scare. I thought I’d better learn something just in case. I’ve still got the journals somewhere.
They’re not a popular item.”
Kevin looked at Tom marvelling at both the old man’s memory and the amount of uninspiring literature he found time to read while waiting for customers. But Tom was a biologist at heart and understood a thing or two about what he read.
He pulled the laptop back towards him and re-read the posting from Solomon. “Totally agree with Day-Owl. Sub-Saharan African drought insoluble, but the day of reckoning is fast approaching.”
It had been the “Mohamed El Badry” effect. Any mention of Africa now interested Kevin. He’d spent the entire morning researching facts, figures, and maps of Nigeria.
As Tom sipped beer, Kevin scrolled, going a long way back. He could only find one other post from Solomon. “Tired of waiting, friends.
Moving on.”
Kevin remembered it, but had decided Solomon had better things to do than follow chatter on the Malthus website. So why had he suddenly made a return? “What else do you know about Solomon?”
he asked Tom.
“He was a microbiologist,” Tom said. “Just like Ehrlich. I’ve checked other things he’s written, and he sounds about as controversial and political as Ehrlich. He mentioned Marxism in one article then said he’d become a Green, then an environmentalist. He wrote an article about destruction of rain forests and said, quite rightly, that it was being driven by commercial demand where there’s market demand someone will exploit and to hell with the long term. Very sensible and very logical. Maybe a bit crazy as well.”