Vaccine Nation

spanspanDani North is a filmmaker who just won at the Tribeca Film Festival for her documentary,/span/spanspanspan /span/spanspaniThe Drugging of Our Children,/i/spanspanspan /span/spanspanspana 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./span/spanspan/spanbrspanbrspanExcerpts from/spanspan /spaniTrojan Horse, The Gravy Train and Bull Street/i/spanspanspan, David Lender's other thrillers, follow the text of/span/spanspani Vaccine Nation/i/spanspanspan./span/span

span class="h1"strongA QA with David Lender/strong/spanbr / img align="right" border="0" src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/apub/lender/Lender._V161009436_.jpg" /br / strongQuestion: /strongem/emWhich books or movies influenced you in writing emVaccine Nation/em? br /br /strongDavid Lender:/strong emVaccine Nation/em is intended to be reminiscent of emSix Days of the Condor/em,em Marathon Man,/em or Hitchcock's emNorth by Northwest/em. I am a fan of the “average person (or seemingly so) thrust into extraordinary circumstances” genre, so the book was also influenced by emThe Bourne Identity, The Fugitive, Enemy of the State, Die Hard, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Man on Fire/em, and emThe Net/em. br /br /strongQ:/strong Tell us about weaving real history and drug facts throughout your story.br /br /strongDL:/strong The facts in emVaccine Nation/em 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. br /br /strongQ:/strong You deal with some very serious and controversial topics being debated across the country. Why did you choose to take on such polarizing subject matter? br /br /strongDL:/strong I was exposed to the vaccine debate through my fiancée’s work as a documentary filmmaker in a 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 [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] statistics show that 10 percent of parents (up from 2 to 3 percent) are avoiding or delaying vaccinating their children because of concerns about vaccine safety. br /br /strongQ:/strong You worked on Wall Street for 25 years. What made you decide to start writing?br /br /strongDL:/strong 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. br /br /strongQ:/strong You must draw a lot of inspiration from your time on Wall Street. Where else do you find inspiration? br /br /strongDL: /strongSometimes it’s someone in my life. Dani North, the protagonist of emVaccine Nation/em, was inspired by my fiancée, Manette. 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. br /br /strongQ:/strong What kind of books do you read, and which authors have influenced you? br /br /strongDL:/strong Thrillers. What else? Thriller writers who have influenced me include Elmore Leonard, Graham Greene, Frederick Forsyth, John le Carré, John Grisham (although I don’t think he’s ever gotten close to emThe Firm/em again), Robert Ludlum, Ken Follett, and Thomas Harris. br /br /strongQ:/strong Which books do you read over and over again? br /br /strongDL:/strong I think F. Scott Fitzgerald’s emThe Great Gatsby/em is the great American novel. I read it every year or so. emOut of Sight/em is Elmore Leonard's best, with emGet Shorty/em a close second. Nobody does dialogue or backstory like him. I’ll also never stop returning to Hemingway’s emThe Sun Also Rises/em, Forsythe’s emThe Day of the Jackal/em (it may be the best thriller ever written), le Carré’s emTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy/em and emSmiley’s People/em, and Graham Greene’s emOur Man in Havana/em.br / hr size="1" /