A Cure to Die For--- A Bit of a Stretch

A Cure to Die For: A Medical Thriller by Stephen G. Mitchell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Being a pre-med student and a retired biology teacher the premise of this book really caught my interest. It was enjoyable because the characters were somewhat interesting and the locales, especially the Navajo Nation were familiar to me. There was alot of action what with the kidnappings and police and/or DEA raids and the various forays into the snowy Montana mountains or across the Midwest at night. There are three main characters who acquire others as the story moves along--some stay for the duration, some are ships passing in the night.



The idea of a cure-all drug was rather fascinating--especially since it is the product of a cannabis hybrid. What is the author trying to say here, I wonder? The fact that the pharmaceutical industry and the government would try to destroy it and the research that produced it is ludicrous. For we find that the drug is not really a cure as such but a substance that sends all sorts of disease into remission and without it the patient is lost once more. I just bet the drug companies would like to see that stamped out rather than fight to get the patent that would allow one of them to corner the market and charge an exhorbitant price for the prescription to say nothing of the taxes the government could levy on the manufacture of such a miracle drug.



And my science self had a real problem with the lack of testing to determine the true efficacy of the drug and to ascertain what the lengthy warnings of side effects would be to the patient.



If logic, then, can be suspended for a time this book is a good read with many twists and turns---not a thriller, not a mystery but surely an adventure. I don't think I'll ever drive by fields thick with high corn in Iowa again without wondering if there are other crops secretly planted between the rows--a take off on the three sisters. Nor will I venture into Window Rock again and park near the Council House without wondering if a Grow is being considered somewhere out in the far reaches of the Reservation.







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