Forbidden Harvest

FORBIDDEN HARVEST dramatizes the ethical and moral issues related to organ transplants and reveals what goes on behind the scenes, from the hospital to the courtroom. (A book trailer is available at vimeo.com/72120149) When does a hero become a villain? In this new medical thriller, Dr. Ken Bernholtz, distinguished pathologist at Children's Memorial is deep into preservation of organs for transplant. He has perfected a method of extending the life of a harvested animal heart from six hours to twenty-four hours. If his method is successful using human organs it has the potential of saving the lives of thousands of children. But when he attempts to replicate his animal experiments using human organs, the hospital in the midst of a major building campaign, and under pressure from outside protestors, rejects his proposal. Dr. Bernholtz is incredulous and his frustration leads him to risk his career and reputation by taking the law into his own hands. He removes cadaver organs at autopsy without hospital or parental permission. He uses some to continue his research and others he sends to a nearby hospital where Saudi children await donor organs. Only the hospital medical director, Dr. Gamal Faysal knows that some of the organs used in his hospital are illegally obtained. Unknown to Dr Bernholtz, Dr. Faysal is extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the parents of the children who receive transplants at his hospital. Bernholtz's clandestine activities become complicated when his godson, Link, at thirteen needs a new heart to survive. Other characters include Link's dad and his stunning grandmother Lydia, as well as the boy's hospital friend Marty, a teenage cancer patient with a smart mouth and wild ideas. Marty tells her young doctor that she hid in the morgue and saw Dr. Bernholtz remove organs that he didn't have permission to harvest. With a little sleuthing he determines Marty is indeed correct. He confronts Dr. Bernholtzd, who pleads with him not to expose him until he is able to procure a heart for Link. The novel ends in a dramatic courtroom confrontation where Dr. Bernholtz is charged with criminal trafficking in human organs.
About the Author: Peter Joseph Rizzolo was born in Newark, New Jersey, November 9, 1928. He was taught by the Sisters of Charity in his early years and Benedictine Monks through high school. He earned a BS degree at Seton Hall University and his MD from Creighton University. He married in 1955. Following his internship at Orange Memorial Hospital, he served as a Naval Submarine Medical Officer. He received his residency training at Hunterdon Medical Center in Flemington New Jersey and practiced family medicine for fifteen years before joining the full-time staff at the Hunterdon Medical Center as director of the residency training program in Family Medicine. He and his wife, Alyce, were blessed with six children. They moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1978, where he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina School Of Medicine. After retiring as Professor of Family Medicine in 1996, he entered the Master's Degree Program in the English Department of North Carolina State University. There he pursued his interest in literature and creative writing. He has written five novels, a memoir, several short stories and a collection of children's stories.