A simple lab test that could customize chemotherapy to
the patient and save lives. Surely such a breakthrough
would be hustled into widespread use? Not in this work
of fiction, and not in the real-life story that inspired
it. Set in the $14 billion cancer research
industry, this is a novel about people caught in the
power grid of medical politics. Money is certainly at
stake, as is status, loyalty to petrified ideas, and
the fate of half a million people dying of cancer every
year.
Dr. Gus Ephraim toils for decades at the fringes of
cancer research, stubbornly awaiting validation of his
tumor test. He risks his marriage and more when he sets
up a new lab in the Midwest, too close to wife number
one and to Dr. Lyman Deering, renowned leader in the
cancer establishment.
As damage to his reputation, his livelihood, and his
family piles up … Gus stops playing by the rules.
Reluctantly, and prodded by an unlikely band of allies,
he takes on the powers-that-be and their cash-register
vision of cancer treatment in America.
| “Good
God, man. Patients are more
than blips on your almighty data curves!
When did you forget that?" |
|
| 
There are elements of courtroom
drama, intellectual suspense, social criticism, and fractured love in this work of medical fiction. You won’t trip across one bloody body
after another, but you will care about a few people
deeply and your brain won’t go to sleep in the
process.
Read what other people are saying
about this book:
“The book
is a page-turner,
emotionally
involving and intelligent.”
|
