A Medical Thriller - A farmer working in the rice fields of Nepal notices a sudden, progressive rotting of his fingers, followed by blindness and a horrific pneumonia. Despite Vedic medical help, he suffocates to death. The strange and deadly illness begins to spread. Thus begins a medical-archaeological thriller that takes archaeobiologist Michael Cohen and his former lover, Dr. Alice Morgan-Wright, from San Francisco to the Himalayas to the Arctic Circle. The germ is revealed to be a virulent, mutilating, and drug-resistant form of leprosy, now spreading in a worldwide epidemic. The warring couple must set off on a danger-filled quest for a cure, threatened by contagion, stalked by unknown assailants, and protected only by their wits and a mysterious amulet handed down by the Order of St. Lazarus. Their best—and only—hope lies buried beneath the Arctic tundra. They must locate the frozen remains of a medieval corpse destroyed by the Black Plague

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AVIAN FLU-BOOK CONNECTION

Best-selling Author Robin Cook Quote:“A timely, gripping, and disturbing novel particularly with the Avian flu knocking at our door.”

Reader Benefit: When reading Reign of the Rat, you’ll learn what a deadly pandemic looks like, how to recognize the onset of what could be life-threatening to those who are unprepared, and what happens when medicines don’t work. Your benefit is by following the storyline in Reign of the Rat you’ll experience through the characters the roller-coaster ride of emotions and decisions to be made at the onset and in the grips of a life-threatening disease running rampant. By experiencing the outcomes of the characters, you will, through their lives, understand and be better able to cope with the problems that arise in a pandemic.

Common Avian Flu Questions with Answers:

• Will Avian flu come to the U.S.? Yes.
• Will it be deadlier than the usual flu? Probably Yes.
• Is it safe to eat chicken? Uncooked chicken is not safe for many reasons, but cooked chicken will be safe even if the Avian flu comes to the U.S.
  
• Will this year’s flu shot protect us against the bird flu? No. A new vaccine is being prepared for this new H5N1 flu virus.
  
• Is it safe to hunt fowl? It is totally safe at the present. The Avian flu has not yet affected the bird population in the U.S.
  
• Can our pets get the flu? Yes. They can get the Avian flu as well as other strains of flu.
  
• If Tamiflu and vaccines won’t work, how can we prepare and protect ourselves? Limit exposure to the flu virus (avoid crowds, avoid areas where people have the flu, wash hands frequently, wear mask in certain circumstances) and maintain high resistance (sufficient sleep, adequate diet, limited stress).
  

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The setting for Reign of the Rat

 

More on Gil Smolin

As a clinical professor at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco for the past twenty-eight years, Dr. Smolin volunteered to go to India in 1985 with the Haas Foundation to work with people afflicted with leprosy. Listening, touching, examining and offering medical assistance to the less fortunate in areas of rural India was an enlightening experience. He continued his work in the developing nations and eventually helped to form a public charity, the DeLoris Lange Foundation, for the purpose of extending medical help to the less fortunate in the world. The Foundation has encouraged many younger, compassionate doctors to assist in this endeavor. These efforts extended to Nepal, India, Yemen, and Ethiopia. He served as secretary/treasurer of this Foundation. As a team of three, he encouraged and assisted the American Academy of Ophthalmology in setting up a registry to facilitate the opportunity for ophthalmologists to go overseas. The program is now quite successful. Dr. Smolin personally made several trips for the purpose of setting up a microbiology laboratory at Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India, to lecture, give courses, and to perform meaningful research. The Deloris Foundation supported many trips by others to study diseases such as trachoma. As editor of a medical journal, he instituted the policy of having free distribution of this journal to a few needy medical centers overseas. With several colleagues, and the financial support of the Haas and Deloris Foundations, he helped organize and run two major symposia in San Francisco on world blindness that brought together leaders in this field. People from the World Health Organization in Geneva as well as doctors from Gambia, London, Nepal, India and many other places came to share experiences and offer advise. For his work, he received the first Humanitarian Award from the Francis I. Proctor Foundation, a world-renowned research institute and clinical referral center. In addition to his volunteer efforts overseas, he continued to teach at the Medical Center and Proctor Foundation for the past thirty-nine years. He has helped train more than 130 fellows and perform research and write textbooks. Dr. Smolin has been involved with the publication of over 200 articles and has co-edited or co-authored eight textbooks. He has served as contributing editor to many medical journals, been on the editorial board of two, and presently co-edits a journal. Dr. Smolin has also maintained a private practice for thirty-nine years and personally has been active in school and community affairs (forming the first dad’s group at her 100 year-old school, being soccer manager of his daughter’s select team for two years-a difficult job, serving on the board of a religious organization for three years and writing novels.