As transplant medicine has grown, increasing numbers of organ recipients are reporting the development of alien emotions, preferences, and memories that they attribute to their donors. While it’s not yet understood if and how organs can retain and express the personality traits of the deceased, some scientists are wondering if the human “soul” might reside in the DNA or the energy of all of our cells.
The Tale of a Transplanted Heart opens a window onto a world where people with failing organs languish on waiting lists. “The possibility that the memories from someone else’s body parts could impact their lives,” is just one of the many risks these patients must bear. This story follows the life of an internationally acclaimed researcher who studies the advanced immunologic defense systems of bats, but who becomes a threat to his own lab after receiving a donor’s heart.
This novel also pulls a curtain back on research labs where scientists seek ways to protect humanity from deadly diseases by manipulating the DNA of dangerous germs. The story exposes the darker side of such research: unenforced lab regulations, ferocious competition for funding, cutthroat competition to produce the next blockbuster vaccine, lab accidents, and the potential creation of biologic weaponry. Readers might be left wondering whether the COVID pandemic arose spontaneously in nature, or was it created in a lab? And if COVID was a “designer virus,” was its escape accidental?
This story might also provoke the reader to consider whether there could actually be a dangerous lab operating in their own back yard, as was the 2023 case for the agrarian community of Reedley, California. When a green hose was noticed sticking out the back of a Reedley warehouse, improperly-stored lethal germs, and hundreds of sick and dead animals were discovered in an illegal, foreign-owned lab hiding in this small town.
The ethical issues faced by the characters in this novel might also have the reader contemplating what makes each of us unique as individuals. Additionally, The Tale of a Transplanted Heart offers insights into the escalating war between health care providers and health care profiteers.
WARNING: This story might make some readers fall in love with bats.
The Tale of a Transplanted Heart is available in paperback and kindle editions with reading samples at: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+tale+of+the+transplanted+heart+hurwitz Find all of Doctor Hurwitz’s novels and hiking books at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=books+by+beverly+hurwitz
