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They Key to Believingfrom the beginning...No part of this book may be reprinted without express permission from Scars Publications and Design or the author this is to strong peoplewho have battled too much The Creation of this novel is dedicated to William Douglas Ward
Ben Ohmart, WriterCharacters are very good, and consistent. They don’t promise one thing and do another. That’s very good. The characters are like real people. I also find the scenes engaging and it makes me want to read more. (The author) also has a good way of making a lot of detail without details. That is, without description. The characters are very strong, you know. Very good. These people are real to me.
Notes
By C Ra McGuirtIn general, I like the style of the novel, and find myself inside the story. I like both Kyle and Sloane and find Kyle a sympathetic character. With Sloane, it’s her life, and her motivations are her own. I also find her a sympathetic character. I can see myself being interested in her work, talking to her about it Again, I really like how the dialogue carries the narrative. I tend in that direction myself when I write prose. The dialogue is very natural and human. The exciting aspect of this to me is that Sloane is involved in what amounts to pure research ... yet she is leaning on herself for immediate results. I like Carter, and I like the warmth between him & Sloane. And I like his inference that good books make for good audiences. There is in me a slight exasperation with Sloane that she has all these wonderful good-hearted handsome sensitive rich successful more or less perfect tight male buddies with whom she will not be intimate lest it wreck something or another. Yet that inserts some conflict. I thought it was damn cute that Carter’s maid tweaked him a bit on picking out the “right” tie. It humanized him for me that he was nervous about seeing this “friend” of his. I also like the use of e-mail to advance the narrative There is a high level of sophistication, with only the occasional jarring descent into awkward or inappropriate dialogue (like slang). The only other Sloane I know is an attorney in NYC. I see SOME personality traits in common with the two Sloanes... and I have to wonder what “my” Sloane would think of “your” Sloane. Hmmm, maybe she will get a chance to find out when this thing hits the book racks...
preface
The history of AIDSWho is Sloane Emerson? By John Yotko Unlike all of the girls in her class in Junior High School, Sloane was having fun as a girl in school going around rubbing tape onto doorknobs and other things people may have touched to collect samples. In school they would take the tape back to the lab to see if anything, like any kinds of bacteria, were there. She meticulously placed the tape in the petri dishes being careful not to touch anything so she would not contaminate the samples she had collected. It was at about this time that AIDS was only being discovered. Sloane had no idea what the disease was then, and she had no idea that her love of science would draw her toward searching for a cure to the virus that causes AIDS. ### It first appeared as a warning sent out by the CDC. These types of warnings were and are still common occurrences when an unusual outbreak of a disease or illness is confined to one location or group of people:
This is an excerpt from the first published report of an illness that one year later would be known as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). This disease that was found predominantly among homosexuals and intravenous drug users was immediately snatched up by the Christian tele-evangelists as the Lord casting His wrath onto the iniquitous and unrighteous. This explanation was left wanting when it was revealed that hemophiliacs also had a high incidence of HIV. It was certain that the children who contracted this disease were not participating in hedonistic behaviors. It started to surface in the 1970s in this country when rare infections and cancers started to strike down people who were thought to be healthy. These infections were the opportunistic type, the type that only strike people with suppressed immune systems. When the disease was discovered it was identified as three distinct entities: HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), ARC (AIDS related complex), and AIDS. As the understanding of the disease grew it was recognized that these were three stages of the same disease - an irreversible trend from HIV infection to AIDS. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis was founded in 1982 as a non-profit organization to provide medical, education, and advocacy services for people with AIDS. One year later the virus was isolated in both the United States at the National Institutes of Health by Robert Gallo and by Luc Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute in France. Later a second strain of the virus was discovered identified as HIV-2. HIV-2 is still very rare outside of Africa. Blood samples from the 1970s indicate that HIV was a problem in the United States as early as 1978. By 1985 the United States and Canadian governments required that all organ and blood donations be screened for HIV. This has led to a significant decrease in the number of people infected with HIV in the United States. The disease was still assumed to be a problem among homosexuals and drug users only. The nation’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of AIDS research, American Foundation for AIDS Research, was founded in 1985. In addition to promoting research into this health crisis they were a leader in the advocacy of fair and compassionate AIDS-related public policies. In 1987 approximately two thirds of all new AIDS patients in the United States were Caucasians, with Blacks and Hispanics making up most of the rest. Finally, President Reagan decided to speak up on this ’six year old’ crisis. Many feel that this was too little too late having lost the opportunity to attack the problem in its infancy when it was primarily limited to specific social groups. Also, because of misconceptions or downright deceit, stigma and prejudice had taken over for compassion. Houses were set on fire. Families shunned relatives because of the disease. Husbands were beating wives with AIDS - even though the husband may have been the source of the disease in the family. A disease that was virtually wiped out in the United States got a boost from AIDS in 1990. Doctors discovered that Tuberculosis was again a problem in this country. Good news came when the ADA began protecting AIDS patients from discrimination in the workplace. The years 1993 through 1995 gave AIDS a new definition. It was finally recognized as a public health problem by the general population in the United States. This new public awareness stopped the ever-expanding growth of new AIDS cases each year. Since 1995 the number of new AIDS cases has been steadily declining, although not in all groups. The misconception that AIDS is a disease among gays has led to a spread among women from about seven percent of AIDS patients in 1987 to about twenty-five percent of all new AIDS patients today. Sloane Emerson gratuated form undergraduate studies in 1994, and one thing she noticed while in her Chemistry studies was that there were a large number of women’s studies groups on her campus, and there was a large push for women’s rights because of the threat of sexual assault. This was the first time women were left on their own with men, and acquaintance rape was common for college students when they were able to access liquor easily at parties and at bars that had an entrance age below twenty-one.. She noticed that during her first two years at achool she did not hear much talk of sexually transmitted diseases, but by her junior year she heard talk the condom use was important not only to present pregnancy for young sexually active students, but also to prevent diseases like AIDS. This was the first time she heard about AIDS, and when she started to research the disease in her libraries at public computer, she learned that it was a virus -- and she wondered if it was a virus that could be stopped in the human body. The trend that Caucasians make up most of the new AIDS cases has reversed and Blacks and Hispanics now make up the majority of the approximately 44,000 new AIDS cases reported in the United States each year. Much of the slowing of the growth of AIDS is due to the public’s knowledge that anyone can get the disease. New drugs have been successful at slowing the progression form HIV infection to AIDS. Clinical trials conducted in 1997 showed that pregnant women who were HIV positive could reduce the transmission of HIV to their children by two thirds with AZT treatments. Deaths from AIDS dropped by 56% from 1996. Things were beginning to look up for the millions of people suffering with AIDS and HIV infection worldwide. Even with all of the progress that has been made it is now confirmed that almost one million Americans are infected with HIV and it is estimated that approximately one percent of the U. S. population is infected. There is no cure or no vaccine in sight. After her schooling, Sloane was offered a job at Madison Pharmaceuticals after working there as in intern while she was in school. She felt that she would be able to work toward her masters or her doctorate while she was working there, and she liked the chance to work there instead of work at the University as a researcher, like her father suggested. Worldwide the number of AIDS or HIV infections is approaching forty million. This continued growth in the number of new patients didn’t look good, and Madison Pharmaceuticals liked her mention of AIDS in her interviews; they were starting to do work to look for medications for AIDS patients, and they like someone with a knowledge of the virus as well as knowledge of how some communities treat AIDS and react to it as a possibility for a promising new employee. The apparent lack of progress toward finding a cure or a vaccine has led many to speculate that this is a weapon escaped from a government laboratory. These conspiracy theories hold that the United States government created the virus and has the cure. Search the internet today for information on conspiracies for AIDS. There is a plethora of choices, each being drastically different from most others. It may be hard to believe, but some people actually subscribe to these notions. Others, ignoring the fanaticism of the conspiracy theorists have dedicated much of their life to finding a vaccine or cure for this disease. Why they would do the work, either for personal satisfaction or humanitarian reasons, was irrelevant. All they knew was that there was a virus that caused a deadly disease. The researchers knew they had to do everything in their power to use science to save people from this disease so that people could live safer, healthier lives. This was the course taken at Madison Pharmaceuticals that lead to promotion after promotion of Sloane so that she was the head of the research department that found the drug with the market title of Emivir, that helped many people with AIDS stay healty for a longer period of time, hopefully until a cure could be found.
Click here for Chapter 1 of The Key To Believing
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