The award-winning Lyme documentary “Under Our Skin” will air nationally on Public Television stations during Lyme Disease Awareness Month, May 2011. This has the potential of reaching millions of homes across the country. The film will be shown through NETA (the National Educational Telecommunications Association), which is offering the film free-of-charge to the PBS network.Call your local PBS station and encourage that “Under Our Skin” is placed on the calendar for the month of May, 2011. It’s free!Check to see if the film is scheduled to show in your area. If your local PBS station has not scheduled the film, please contact them and ask them to show it. Many of the stations that are broadcasting UNDER OUR SKIN agreed to schedule it after receiving a handful of calls from viewers in the community.
 

For local PBS station contact information, go to www.pbs.org/stationfinder

 

Review: The Poison Plum by Les Roberts    

Critics and reviews have stated that Les Roberts’ book, The Poison Plum, is by some too over the top in expressing the views of "fundamentalist Christians" and political enthusiasts who think outside the norm. It goes way beyond inconceivable; others had nothing but praise for the book.

Originally, I had written a review that follows in the same format of others. A freak accident wiped out my entire’s week work which included the review of Les Roberts’ book. Although I feel the original review was adequate, after re-reading the reviews that were already out there, I reconsidered a different perspective from the first.

Each and every one of us has different tastes and interests when it comes to reading books. As we all have difference of opinions on how much government involvement should be allowed in our personal lives. For example, right now, those that oppose the increase of Government and want to uphold the Constitution are considered radicals and trouble makers.

I love to read all types of books and watch all types of movies: suspense, thriller, autobiographies, educational, fluff, feel good, romance, comedy and spiritual. It all depends on what is happening in my own life. Books and movies are used to escape or expand on what is happening in real life. We have the choice on what we would like to read and what we would like to watch. If you don’t want to read a particular book: don’t; if you don’t agree with a particular movie: don’t watch it. End of story.

Connie Strasheim did an excellent job of concisely describing The Poison Plum. “Paradoxically, life's greatest truths are often found in fiction, and nowhere has the truth about Lyme, the fastest-growing infectious disease in the United States, been so accurately revealed as in this powerful, gripping story about a congressman and his quest for justice, a woman's desire for her son's healing from Lyme disease, and the powers that oppose them.”

I, too, like others was captivated and disconcerted with the underlying truth of the basis of the book. Often I found that I had to set it aside to calm down. You see, within this work of fiction, Roberts does a thorough job on intertwining fact within fiction.

In the beginning, the reader is presented with the infamous works of the Government’s Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in Alabama in the 1940’s where approximately 400 African Americans were used as human guinea pigs. Some may think, that was decades ago. Surely, the Government has come a long way since then; however, there are several concerns and conjectures on where the 2001-2002 West Nile virus became such a problem and why. If you ask those that are struggling with chronic Lyme Disease, there are those that feel the particular strain of Lyme Disease that becomes chronic is a form of a “bio warfare” defense. With all these examples, if you take the necessary time to research, you will find supporting evidence.

No sooner are you shown the horrors of what the Government is capable of, then you are thrust into the present. A tragedy at the hand of a beloved, honored and Congressional Medal Honor recipient at Plum Island, one of the most inconsolable experiences that we have been exposed to over and over only to be left asking: Why?

In the reader’s journey to find out, you are led through a single mother’s quest to find a cure for her son’s illness, that physician upon physician has a different idea as to what could be the problem. She then finds out that the answer may be at her job with the Government at the biological research laboratory. This thrusts her into a world of deception, government corruption, and the political injustices in search of the truth. Only to end with a major twist of turn of events.

This book is not for the faint of heart or those that choose to see the world through rose-colored glasses. It is also not for those that are firm believers that the Government is only looking for the best interest of the people and has no underlying motives of its own.

"This is one for the record books! This one will change the way you think, open your eyes and leave you speechless. This is one book you will never, ever forget! Les Roberts has knocked it out of the ball park with his creative genius. Get it!" ~ Laura Z.