Michael Palmer

✍ Scribed by Causes, Natural

• Book ID: 107863324
• Publisher: Bantam
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 361 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9780307781222

✦ Synopsis

Dr. Sarah Baldwin races to a Boston hospital with a young woman whose normal labor has suddenly become a matter of life and death. As she struggles to save both mother and baby, she doesn't know that two other women have already died under horrifying identical circumstances. And so begins Sarah's own nightmare, as she learns that the prenatal herbal vitamins she prescribed are the only thing these women have in common. Soon Sarah is fighting to save her career, her reputation--her life. For she's certain there must be some unknown factor linking these women, and as she gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone will do anything--even murder--to keep a devastating secret.

From the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

The latest medical thriller by physician Palmer ( Extreme Measures ) is timely and diverting. Dr. Sarah Baldwin is a fast-track OB/GYN resident at the Medical Center of Boston (aka "Crunchy Granola General"), a hospital which seems ideally suited to her holistic healing background. When one of her patients is stricken with sudden, almost unstoppable bleeding, Sarah saves her life with a combination of acupuncture and meditation techniques, briefly becoming a heroine. Then, it turns out that this patient and two others who died under similar circumstances were all taking a natural herbal vitamin supplement Sarah had prescribed. The young resident soon finds herself pitted against several powerful interests, including an HMO poised to take over the struggling hospital. With the help of an attractive if inexperienced lawyer, a dedicated investigator for the Centers for Disease Control and the head of MCB's department of internal medicine, Sarah tries to avert the threats to her career and, as later becomes clear, to her life. Natural Causes is a page-turner despite more villains than any plot requires, and a conclusion that, like the Energizer Bunny, keeps on going and going, this is an entertaining novel with some surprise moments.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-Several deaths occur from definitely unnatural causes in this fast-paced medical thriller that features genetic engineering of a recombinant DNA virus and alternative, nontraditional healing methods. In the final stages of labor, a woman suddenly screams at the pain in her fingers and hands, blood gushes from her nose and mouth, and then she dies. The third time this happens, the common thread points to obstetrician Sarah Baldwin and the herbal vitamin supplements she has prescribed for expectant mothers. Sarah's reputation, her hard work, and her future are in jeopardy unless she and her inexperienced lawyer can prove her innocence. Palmer captures the hospital environment of medicine, politics, community involvement, and relationship with the drug industry. Although slightly overlong, with several plot twists too many, this exciting page-turner will appeal to fans of Robin Cook and Michael Crichton.
Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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