The Hot Zone was first released in 1994, the year I graduated high school. Like many readers, that book and Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague* really sparked my interest in infectious diseases. In some sense, I have those books to thank (or blame?) for my career.

But I’m still going to criticize The Hot Zone, because as a mature infectious disease epidemiologist and a science communicator in the midst of the biggest Ebola outbreak in history, The Hot Zone is now one of the banes of my existence. A recent article noted that the book is back on the bestseller list, going as high as #7 on the New York Times list recently, and #23 on Amazon. It’s sold over 3.5 million copies, and it’s reported as “a terrifying true story.” Many people have gotten almost all of their Ebola education from just The Hot Zone (as they’ve told me over, and over, and over in the comments to this blog and other sites).

Here’s why The Hot Zone is infuriating to so many of us in epidemiology and infectious diseases.

First–the description of symptoms. Preston himself admits that these were exaggerated. Over and over, he uses words like “dissolving,” “liquefy,” “bleeding out” to describe patient pathology. (If I had been playing a drinking game while reading and did a shot every time Preston uses “liquefy” in the book, I’d be dead right now).