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Vaccine Nation

Dani North is a filmmaker who just won at the Tribeca Film Festival for her documentary, The Drugging of Our Children, a film critical of the pharmaceutical industry. When she is handed “whistleblower” evidence about the U.S. vaccination program, she has to keep herself alive long enough to expose it before a megalomaniacal pharmaceutical company CEO can have her killed.

Excerpts from Trojan Horse, The Gravy Train and Bull Street, David Lender’s other thrillers, follow the text of Vaccine Nation.A Q&A for Vaccine Nation with David Lender

Question: While Vaccine Nation explores other issues, it is at its core a fast-paced, action thriller. What books or movies influenced you in writing it?

David Lender: Vaccine Nation is intended to be reminiscent of Six Days of the Condor, Marathon Man or Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. I am a fan of the "average person (or seemingly so) thrust into extraordinary circumstances" genre, and in addition was influenced by The Bourne Identity, The Fugitive, Enemy of the State, Die Hard, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Man on Fire and The Net.

Q: Vaccine Nation features a woman who is forced to eventually drug her child after he's diagnosed with ADHD, and who is later she is drawn into what appears to be a massive drug company cover-up. You weave actual history and drug facts throughout your story. Tell us about that.

DL: The facts in Vaccine Nation are accurate—the 1986 Congressional grant of immunity to the pharmaceutical industry for liability related to their vaccines for the National Immunization Program, the toxicity of certain ingredients of vaccines, the controversy surrounding the safety and side-effects of vaccines, vaccines' suspected relationship to the autism epidemic, and the recent (2011) Supreme Court decision that absolved vaccine-makers from product liability for defective vaccine products.

Q: Vaccine Nation deals with some very serious and controversial topics that are being debated not just in court but homes across America. Why did you choose to take on such a polarizing topic?

DL: My primary inspiration for writing Vaccine Nation was my exposure to the vaccine debate through my fiancé's work as a documentary filmmaker in the health-related field, including films on ADHD and related drugging of children, and on vaccines and autism. The issues in the book are real and need exposure. The debate on vaccine safety is increasing: recent CDC statistics show that 10% of parents (up from 2% to 3%.) are avoiding or delaying vaccinating their children because of concerns about vaccine safety.

Q: I have read that you worked for 25 years on Wall Street, what made you decide to start writing?

DL: I always wanted to be a novelist. I made up my mind to do it about 15 years ago when my investment banking career was in full swing. I just muscled it into my schedule, getting up at 5 a.m., writing for an hour and then going to my day job, like most aspiring writers. I outlined or edited scenes on planes, in cabs or in hotel rooms. I write because I love it, but also because I got to the point where I could no longer ignore the compulsion to do so.

Q: You must draw a lot of inspiration from your time on Wall Street. Where else do you find inspiration? DL: Sometimes it's someone in my life. Dani North, the protagonist of Vaccine Nation, was inspired by my fiancé, Manette, and her work as a documentary filmmaker. Elmore Leonard is one of my favorite authors, and reading his stuff frequently gives me ideas. Sometimes it's just throwing ideas around with friends.

Q: What kind of books do you read, and what authors have influenced you?

DL: Thrillers. What else? Thriller writers who have influenced me are Elmore Leonard, Graham Greene, Frederick Forsyth, John LeCarre, John Grisham (although I don't think he's ever gotten close to The Firm again), Robert Ludlum, Ken Follett, and Thomas Harris.

Q: What books do you read over and over again?

DL: I think F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is the great American novel. I read it every year or so. Elmore Leonard is the contemporary author I most admire. Out of Sight is his best, with Get Shorty a close second. Nobody does dialog or backstory like him. I'll also never stop returning to Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Forsythe's The Day of the Jackal (it may be the best thriller ever written), Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, and Graham Green's Our Man in Havana.Dani North is a filmmaker who just won at the Tribeca Film Festival for her documentary, The Drugging of Our Children, a film critical of the pharmaceutical industry. When she is handed “whistleblower” evidence about the U.S. vaccination program, she has to keep herself alive long enough to expose it before a megalomaniacal pharmaceutical company CEO can have her killed.

Excerpts from Trojan Horse, The Gravy Train and Bull Street, David Lender’s other thrillers, follow the text of Vaccine Nation.

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