When I finished reading Daniel Kalla’s latest medical thriller Lost Immunity, which is about a special vaccine that is created to stop an outbreak of a virulent strain of meningitis in Seattle, only to find out that the vaccine in question is responsible for a number of dangerous side effects in a number of recipients – some of them fatally – one thing immediately popped into my mind.
This novel could have been written yesterday!
Kalla, who is an emergency medicine doctor in Vancouver, concurs.
“Lost Immunity was more like a natural progression for me. I started writing it two years ago, and I always had a niche when it came to finding out what the next hot button topic in the world of medicine would be, and I thought vaccines would be it,” he said during a recent phone interview. “I finished the first draft of the book during the COVID outbreak, and throughout the worst of the pandemic, I had to constantly guess what direction the narrative would take. That was the real challenge of writing this book, because the subject matter became 100 times more relevant than I thought it would be.”
The story of Lost Immunity focuses on Dr. Lisa Dyer, the newly appointed chief public health officer for the city of Seattle. Before she could get the opportunity to get comfortable in — and familiar with – her new job, she is faced with an immediate medical crisis that has unexpectedly hit the city. It seems that a number of youngsters from a Bible camp just south of the city became infected with meningococcus, one of the deadliest strains of meningitis that is also the most resistant to any type of vaccine.
However, Dr. Dyer finds the answer to conquering the outbreak before it becomes a full-blown pandemic. It’s in the form of a vaccine called Neissovax, which was developed in Iceland. Although the vaccine is still in its final stages prior to approval, Dr. Dyer convinces Nathan Hull, the vice-president of the pharmaceutical company that is conducting the final phase trials on the vaccine, to give it an early release, so that she could initiate a mass roll out throughout Seattle, which is a move that on the surface is quite risky, to say the least.
But when some of the recipients experience extreme side effects from the vaccine (some of which were proved to be fatal), Dr. Dyer has the difficult choice to continue the roll out or halt it altogether and save face for the city, its public health department and the pharmaceutical company. As well, she has to incur the wrath of numerous public officials, fanatical anti-vaxxers, and on a more personal level, from her sister who is an anti-vaxxer, her disapproving father, and her husband with whom their marriage is on its last legs as a result of the crisis. And when Dr. Dyer starts to investigate what is causing these deadly side effects with the Neissovax vaccine, the revelations could be more damaging than the accusations of neglect that could arise from the rush to an early release and roll out.
“I don’t understand why there are so much politics when it comes to searching for a cure to a disease, as well as so much opposition from online experts and anti-vaxxers. I can’t fathom the logic where it comes from, because it can lead to huge mishaps that can be utterly catastrophic,” said Kalla. “However, you have to balance the risks and the benefits. Of all the miracles of modern medicine, vaccines are rated as #1. And you certainly don’t see marches going on against hip replacements and antibiotics!”
Lost Immunity is a fast-paced, fact-filled medical thriller that reads like the anatomy of an epidemic and its cure from every angle and from every side of the story that are involved, which gives the reader a well-rounded look at how a few cc’s of a liquid medication from the tip of a hypodermic needle can create so much hope, fear, paranoia and panic. It’s also a fine tribute to the dedicated public officials and front line workers who put everything on the line towards the race to eradicate a quickly spreading epidemic. Lost Immunity may read like today’s headlines, but it gives us a better understand of the many dimensions that effect the never ending quest that is the miracle of modern medicine.
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