Clinical Trial - Hardcover

Christofferson, April

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312868995 ISBN 13: 9780312868994

Publisher: Forge Books, 2000

Synopsis

The deadly hantavirus has killed hundreds of Native Americans, so when a reputable pharmaceutical company claims to have developed a vaccine against the deadly disease, it should be good news. But when ImmuVac asks Dr. Isabel McLain to conduct a clinical trial of the vaccine on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, Montana, the proposal gets a distinctly mixed response from both her and the suspicious Blackfeet. Is the new drug truly safe, or are the Blackfeet being used as human guinea pigs?

Indian activist Monty Four Bear fears the worst, but Dr. McLain stakes her reputation on the trial's safety. Having taken over the poorly-funded reservation clinic after the catastrophic failure of her marriage, Isabel has fought a long, hard struggle to gain the trust of the wary Blackfeet residents of the reservation. She knows she risks everything she's accomplished by endorsing ImmuVac's clinical trial, but she's willing to take that chance if it means developing a weapon against the hantavirus.

But when corporate greed makes for questionable science, whom can Isabel truly trust with her life and her career --and the lives of the Blackfeet?

About this title

About the Author

April Christofferson is an attorney with a biotech firm in Seattle. She holds an undergraduate degree in biology. She lives in Seattle with her family.

Reviews

Set mostly on a Montana Blackfoot reservation, this well-constructed fourth thriller from Christofferson (The Protocol) features a fine cast of heroes and villains battling over medical ethics, drug-company tactics and the hard facts of reservation life. As the story begins, Dr. Isabel McLain has fled her failed Seattle marriage for the reservation's small medical clinic, where she has grown involved in the difficult life of the tribe. Then the rare, fast-acting hantavirus kills three of her patients. An Oregon biotech company, ImmuVac, wants to test its hantavirus vaccine on the reservation. Is ImmuVac simply trying to save Blackfoot lives or is it unscrupulously using Native Americans as guinea pigs? Despite her misgivingsDand objections from local teacher and activist Monty Four BearDIsabel okays the trials: her reputation, and the health of the tribe, will depend on their outcome. Meanwhile, national worries about biowarfare makes the vaccine for hantavirus particularly lucrative: What risks will ImmuVac take to reap the profits, and what else is on the company's agenda? And why has Isabel's vengeful ex-husband, a doctor himself, turned up on the rez? Christofferson's smooth plotting and prose show the dexterity of a novelist coming into her own. She's especially good with her large cast of Blackfoot characters, who reveal themselves and their histories gradually through the choices they make. The pharmaceutical-industry intrigues come across as merely workmanlike; yet the strands of Christofferson's plot twine together to combine strong characters with a satisfying conclusion, one that more than lives up to her previous work. Agent, Julie Castiglia.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Isabel McLain, physician for a Blackfoot reservation in Montana, is half Indian herself, though she doesn't learn that until well along in Christofferson's intriguing thriller. When several patients are infected with a hantavirus, Isabel agrees to undertake a clinical trial on the rez for a vaccine created by nearly bankrupt ImmuVac, a biotech company that doesn't let ethics get in its way. The trial raises one Monty Four Bear's suspicions, and he tries to sabotage it. When a top exploratory geologist for World Resources, Inc., reports that a productive gold field lies under the rez, yet another unethical company enters the picture. Later on, Isabel's husband, Alistair, whom she is divorcing and who had been cooking clinical trials profitably for years until she turned him in, almost murders her. Christofferson develops her yarn intriguingly and her characters believably, producing another gripper that, without gratuitous sex and violence, seems guaranteed to make any reader late for dinner, or even breakfast. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Forge Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312868995
• ISBN 13: 9780312868994
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304