Thursday, January 19, 2012

Author Inteview: David Lender – Vaccine Nation

Vaccine NationOur interview today is with David Lender (see all of his books) and his novel Vaccine Nation. This is a very entertaining novel that I have actually had a chance to read. Vaccine Nation is a fast paced thriller occurring over a few days based around the central theme of the U.S. vaccination program and the pharmaceutical industry. In my opinion, if you like a John Grisham style of fast paced book then you will enjoy Vaccine Nation.

Author interview with David Lender:

What was the basis for your story—what inspired it?

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.

In 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. She’s also just started work on a new documentary on autism. When a pharmaceutical industry vaccine researcher hands her smoking gun evidence about the U.S. National Immunization Program seconds before he’s murdered right in front of her, Dani finds herself implicated and pursued by the police.


Dani realizes what she’s been handed could have crucial implications on upcoming hearings by a Senate committee. A key issue the Senate committee will consider is whether Congress should continue the immunity it granted in 1986 to the pharmaceutical industry for claims by parents on damage to their children from the U.S. National Immunization Program. That puts Dani on the run in a race to understand and expose the evidence. That is, before the police can grab her, or Grover Madsen, a megalomaniacal pharmaceutical industry CEO, can have her hunted down by his hired killers. Madsen knows exactly what Dani has and how explosive it is for the pharmaceutical industry: it has the potential to make the tobacco industry’s lawsuits and subsequent multi-billion dollar settlements seem like routine slip-and-fall cases. Madsen uses all his company’s political and financial resources to track Dani.

What research did you have to perform to back up your story? Any research which really opened your eyes?

I did extensive research through a number of websites devoted to the topics of autism, vaccines and developmental disorders, including National Vaccine Information Center (http://www.nvic.org/), Dr. Joseph Mercola (www.mercola.com), Safe Minds (http://www.safeminds.org/), Age of Autism (http://www.ageofautism.com/), Generation Rescue (http://www.generationrescue.org/) and AutismOne (www.autismone.org). David Kirby’s book (Evidence of Harm – Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy) was also a source. The NIH, CDC, FDA, Office of Special Counsel and U.S. Supreme Court websites and countless blog, periodical and newspaper articles were important mines of information, all this on top of hundreds of hours reviewing dailies of filmed MD and parent interviews from my fiancé’s work as a documentary filmmaker.

The facts in Vaccine Nation are accurate, many of which shocked me—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 U.S. Supreme Court’s 2011 affirmation that vaccine makers can’t be held responsible for design defects in their products. The issues in the book are real and 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.

What is your method for writing a book? A certain amount of hours every day? A certain routine? Are you a character/story builder or an outliner or some other method?

I was taught by my first editor (who also, I’m thrilled to say, edited Vaccine Nation) to do character bios and a scene-by-scene outline of the entire novel before starting to write. Since then I learned some techniques from an experienced Hollywood script development exec, like starting with a one-sentence log line that captures the story, and then building the outline, including key dramatic steps, in three acts from there. Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat has a great “beat sheet” that I use.
I shoot to average 1,000 words per day, meaning 365,000 words per year. When I’m actively working on a book I keep count. I’m always playing catch-up. Vaccine Nation came in at about 72,000 words, less than what I was targeting (after editing and rewrites it ended at about 65,000). I finished it on schedule over the summer, some days writing over 5,000 words in order to catch up for days I didn’t write,. I know for some writers, 365,000 words per year is easy. Not for me. I’m only just outlining my next book. Outlining doesn’t count, although my outlines run about 35-40 pages.

What was your journey as a writer?

I started writing about 15 years ago, cramming it into my schedule during my career as an investment banker doing mergers and acquisitions deals. After finishing two novels, I was introduced by a prominent literary agent to seasoned publishing exec who’d edited Robert Ludlum’s first nine thrillers. He taught me how to write a thriller over the next 18 months. Then I got caught up full time in my career on Wall Street again, until about 3 years ago when I got serious about writing again. I wrote another novel and started shopping all my stuff around to agents, including pitching at Thrillerfest in New York. When I couldn’t find the right agent to take me on, I self-published on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform. I put out three books earlier in 2011: Trojan Horse, The Gravy Train and Bull Street. All made the Kindle Top 100. Vaccine Nation was released late in 2011 and is doing well. I’m working on my next thriller now.

What do your books offer discerning readers that is different from the bestselling thrillers out there?

I think I offer my readers an entrée into vivid worlds with realistic characters populating them. My first book, Trojan Horse, had broad international settings and themes based on my own travel as a mergers and acquisitions banker, and my own research into Islamic culture, computer hacking and the oil business. The Gravy Train and Bull Street were set on Wall Street, and depicted the ambience, color and imagery of that world, and accurately portrayed the egos and bruising competitiveness of the personalities that inhabit it. Vaccine Nation captures the corporate and legal/political world, including blood-real characters within it, that accurately dramatize the current controversy over vaccine safety in the US and UK.

I think a lot of thriller writers today focus on pure action and plot versus character in their books, and thus create Perils of Pauline-like caricatures with cliff-hanger endings to every scene. After a while I find that kind of writing like getting punched in the head, and I believe a lot of readers do, too. I think I offer more than that.

Vaccine Nation, as a fast-paced action thriller occurring over a few days, is designed to entertain, but is also an exploration of the very real issues in the current debate over vaccine state safety in the mandatory US National Immunization Program. As a dramatization of this debate, Vaccine Nation will hopefully both leave readers breathless and make them think.

DBT: David thanks for an excellent interview. It was very informative.

Some important links:

Visit his website: www.davidlender.net
Follow him on Twitter: @davidtlender

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