Forbidden Research

by Howard Simon, M.D.

In the vein of Michael Crichton, Forbidden Research combines science and medicine in a story that both educates and entertains. The story involves a team of surgeons and their residents who are concerned about their lives and livelihood when an extreme animal rights group starts attacking various labs and researchers. The animal rights group opposes all animal-based research and is systematically trying to eliminate it by employing various modes of terrorism. The FBI gets involved to fish out which organization is behind the attacks before all the research labs decide to close and doctors lose one of their important methods of research.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The characters were well fleshed out and developed to the point that you cared about what happened to them. My only criticism about the characters, however, is that there were so many of them. I had some difficulty keeping track of certain ones and, after having put the book down for a day, often asked myself "Who is that again?" when I came upon one of the supporting characters. While it was enlightening to learn about the other doctors and staff at the hospital, many of them were not essential to the plot and could have been eliminated without the story suffering.

I also found some of the additional subplots unnecessary. They really didn't add much to the main plot or the characters aside from a bit more introduction to certain character flaws. The book would have still been successful without them.

The language in this book was easy to read however, if you haven't taken a biology class or caught reruns of ER recently, you might get a bit lost in some of the medical terminology. While the author does explain some of the more complex terms (like the medical term for gall bladder removal: cholecystectomy), other terms are simply left undefined.

As the book drew to a close, it became quite a page turner. I was surprised at one of the developments but a bit disappointed with another. It seemed like it would be a foregone conclusion, however, given the nature of the surgeons' research.

I would rate this book 3 out of 5 Wheeks. It was an entertaining read but not a book I would read repeatedly.

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