Dark Winter

A sweeping journey through the past, present and future of pandemics and biosecurity.

In Dark Winter, world-leading epidemiologist and biosecurity expert Raina MacIntyre provides insights into historical biological attacks, lab accidents and epidemics, and the COVID-19 pandemic. She reveals a recurrent theme of denial, silence, and cover-up around unnatural epidemics, and the powerful vested interests at play.

Using the lens of history, MacIntyre also provides a glimpse into new frontiers of biosecurity. Dark Winter outlines quantum advances in genetic engineering and synthetic biology, and a future where human genome editing and resurrection of extinct viruses might be the norm. MacIntyre argues that the solution to the existential threat we face from biotechnology will not come from scientists, but from the community having a voice in the future of the planet and humanity.

“Here is what we all need - clear evidence about COVID-19, its origins, treatment, and consequences. Professor MacIntyre's conclusions are often shocking, but her only bias is in favour of the empirical truth.” - Alison Broinowski

Dark Winter does an excellent and balanced job of providing important facts that we as a society all need to know to better understand how to deal with natural and artificial pandemics. Whether discussing past examples of lab leaks, common misconceptions and misinformation about how diseases spread, or the social dynamics of epidemiology and public health as a profession, Raina combines superb writing skill with an informed perspective grounded in both the last two centuries of human history and lessons from her own work. - Vitalik Buterin

“...a powerful, important and essential work.” - The Saturday Paper