In conversation with WICCI about my recently released medical thriller 'The Aquila Trials.' Thank you WICCI Gujarat Elementary Education Council  for the platform!  https://www.facebook.com/wiccigujarat/videos/1059308447813488 For those intrigued enough, reach out for a copy at https://www.amazon.in/Aquila.../dp/1648997600/ref=sr_1_1...

Kruti:  You and I have both written about the opioid crisis in our novels. Being a US-based pharmacist and having seen the catastrophe up-close, why do you think the government of such a tightly regulated country was so blind-sided in detecting an oncoming drug disaster?    Peter:  In my opinion the government really did not think there was an epidemic until it was too late. These drug companies (Purdue for example) were all abiding by government regulations and laws, so there was no pursuit by the DEA [1] or FBI in the early stages of the problem. They marketed their products to doctors who in turn began writing prescriptions for these opioids.    Once some unscrupulous doctors began noticing a niche market for these drugs and an abundant demand for them, they opened up what became known as "pill mills." In these "pain clinics" doctors would charge their clients $200 cash co-pays and then referred them to pharmacies that would fill their pre...

If you’ve been shown  job search ads on your work computer after doing an employment hunt from your tablet at home, you probably know what  ‘the Grid’  is. If you’ve received walk-in angiography messages on your mobile while passing a heart-specialty hospital, or foreign education loan messages on your daughter’s 18 th  birthday, you don’t need an introduction to the Grid.  Wherever you go, you are constantly ‘in the Grid’ – tracked through your landline, mobile, traffic cameras, computer desktop, credit card,  biometric devices at clubs and offices,  store scanners, cookies, and what not.    Electronic tracking and lack of privacy are an accepted fact of today’s times. Modern data marketers can build a dossier on us through the thousands of databases we are not even aware we are in. They  can trace us even when we change IDs, names, cities. Because they now analyse the signs and behaviours that remain the same – the writing style, the c...

  A preview of "The Grid" in 'The Aquila Trials.' Traced. Trailed. Hounded. How far are we from the story of the protagonist? More on it in the next post. #TheAquilaTrials #novel #medicalthriller #pharmafiction #indianauthor #books #medicalfaction #latestnovel #newrelease2020 #thegrid

  The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re okay, then it’s you.                         - Rita Mae Brown   Are you balding? Get treated for alopecia. Thin eyelashes? You may have hypotrichosis. 50+ male with a reduced sex drive and erection troubles? Andropause could be the cause. If you are a woman with inadequate breast development, it’s really a disease, according to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. An issue of the  Seattle Times  quoted that 75% of the adult US population was diseased. Are we increasingly becoming biologically indisposed? Or is something else at work?   Medicalization is a social process through which previously non-medical conditions are turned into ‘medical problems’ primarily by...

Happy to present an introductory video blurb of 'The Aquila Trials' that gives an insight into some of the issues covered in the novel.  #medicalthriller #medicalfaction #theaquilatrials #indianauthor #novel 

  My first book for international audiences. I’m highly thrilled!     The germ of the story was born during a career break that I took around the birth of my second daughter. The pleasant “house arrest” that practically every mother goes through, turned into a period of introspection and an opportunity for exercising my creativity. I have drawn on my  experience in marketing communications , and a  research stint in anti-HIV drugs at a pharmaceutical company, during which I had interviewed #HIV-positive patients, #LGBTQ activists, HIV specialists/doctors, and pharmacists.   Here's a trailer of the story. Eagerly awaiting feedback from readers.   #medicalthriller #pharmafiction #indianauthor #book #novel #TheAquilaTrials #medicalfaction

It’s finally out! My maiden novel ‘The Aquila Trials’ has been a dream in the making for more than twenty years. Well, sort of. At the end of the last millennium, when I was interviewing HIV specialists, LGBTQ activists, AIDS patients, and pharmacists before the launch of an antiretroviral drug of a pharmaceutical company, I had not the faintest idea that my interactions with them were sowing the germ of an idea that would later materialize in the form of a novel. In the years in between, I became a marketing communications professional who secretly dreamt of conducting groundbreaking scientific research in a white lab coat, with beakers, funnels, and flasks. (Funny, how my protagonist had the exact opposite fantasy.)    During my career break after two kids, I began writing what was originally intended to be a short story, but over the months, ideas and information kept coming my way, and before long, I was thoroughly steeped in all things ‘pharma.’ Today my dream has materi...