Toxin

Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: Truly enjoyed the book. Made me think twice about eating "hamburger" again. I look forward to a new Robin Cook title.

Rating:
Summary: Cook cooks up a scary recipe
Review: As a fellow physician and author, my hat is off to Dr. Cook, again. His research is sound, the plot (as always) exciting, and the content presents valid medical information to inform the public of an ever new threat. One does not have to postulate a virus from outer space or a pathogen from the bowels of Africa to frighten us; Cook presents a home-grown "bug" which we should all be aware of. Buy this book and save it for a weekend excursion into terror.

Rating:
Summary: A very good book which I learned lots of new info
Review: Robin Cook, the popular other of such novels as "Coma" and more recently "Invasion" and "Chromosome 6" has recently released his new novel, Toxin. This happened to be the second book I read by him. The story revolves around Dr. Kim Reggis, a respected cardiac surgeon. One night, he takes his daughter to a popular local restaurant, known as The Onion Ring. The day after their dinner their, Becky (Kim's daughter) starts to feel sick. After the weekend, Becky's conditions worsen, and Kim and his ex-wife, Tracy, bring her to the doctor. After waiting for about 3 hours, Becky visits the doctor, who only looks at her for about a half hour, and prescribes nothing to her. Later in the week, Becky worsens, and is taken to the hospital again, and is eventually hooked up to an IV. Things continue to worsen with Becky, until she eventually dies. Kim vowes to get to the bottom of this, and with the help of his ex-wife, and a USDA worker, he finds out important facts, that may caust him his life. I thought that Cook did an excellent job of defining Kim character. I also was never bored at any point while reading this book. The dialogue was a little weak, but that's alright. The action was continuos, and character devevelopment was clear. Also, Cook did a knockout job with all his research, even though I'm still gonna go to McDonald's. I really enjoyed this book. The only problem that I have with this one really, is that the final result with Kim and Tracy is lame. But otherwise, excellent stuff.END

Rating:
Summary: Long on alarmism, short on reason, but an interesting story
Review: As usual, Dr. Cook has written another "page-turner." I couldn't put the book down. After "Chromosome 6," I vowed that I would not read another of his books, but I read "Toxin" anyway. His diatribe against the beef industry is right off Oprah and his descriptions of meat packing are right out of PETA fund-raising material: it sounds disgusting, but it didn't convince me go give up beef. Pass me a burger! On top of all this, the ending was very weak.

Rating:
Summary: YOU'LL NEVER EAT MEAT AGAIN!!!!!
Review: I've been a fan of robin's books since he was 'dr. x'....with his previous one, chromosome 6, he showed us that he "learned to write"...with "toxin" he reallllllly proves it.....what a read!!!! get this book quick...do not hesitate....i read it in 3 sittings obviously riveted to these pages....if oprah thought she had problems with the beef industry, well it ain't nothing like the problems robin's gonna face...! yup, he's gutsy that's for sure.....and truly shows the greed and arrogance of the meat industry...no, i was not a vegetarian when i started to read this book but now........wellllllllll.......read it and judge for yourself as to whether or not you'll ever eat meat again!!!! robin's research was incredible... he best get himself a bodyguard though.....one question though remains in my mind....what cardiac surgeon sees patients in his office???? my experience with them is...yes, they are exceedingly talented arrogant god-like doctors but they spend 90% of their lives in surgery....cardiologists actuallly see these patients prior to and after surgery....these were amazing characters....excellent airplane book...destined to make a reallllly good tv movie if hollywood has the guts to make it!!!!

Rating:
Summary: A very good book which I learned lots of new info
Review: Robin Cook, the popular other of such novels as "Coma" and more recently "Invasion" and "Chromosome 6" has recently released his new novel, Toxin. This happened to be the second book I read by him. The story revolves around Dr. Kim Reggis, a respected cardiac surgeon. One night, he takes his daughter to a popular local restaurant, known as The Onion Ring. The day after their dinner their, Becky (Kim's daughter) starts to feel sick. After the weekend, Becky's conditions worsen, and Kim and his ex-wife, Tracy, bring her to the doctor. After waiting for about 3 hours, Becky visits the doctor, who only looks at her for about a half hour, and prescribes nothing to her. Later in the week, Becky worsens, and is taken to the hospital again, and is eventually hooked up to an IV. Things continue to worsen with Becky, until she eventually dies. Kim vowes to get to the bottom of this, and with the help of his ex-wife, and a USDA worker, he finds out important facts, that may caust him his life. I thought that Cook did an excellent job of defining Kim character. I also was never bored at any point while reading this book. The dialogue was a little weak, but that's alright. The action was continuos, and character devevelopment was clear. Also, Cook did a knockout job with all his research, even though I'm still gonna go to McDonald's. I really enjoyed this book. The only problem that I have with this one really, is that the final result with Kim and Tracy is lame. But otherwise, excellent stuff.END

Rating:
Summary: Toxin hope i dont get it
Review: This book is a literay masterpiece that deserves to be put on a pedestal because Dr. Cook makes a truely scare villian out of an invisible diesase with a number attached to it. He also will scare the pants of u when u read about the meat packing and slaughter house industries

Rating:
Summary: TOXIN
Review: This book begins with Dr. Kim Reggis getting his daughter from his devorced wife. His daughter wanted to eat at a fastfood restaurant so they did. Because the burger was rare she caught e-coli and Kim becomes determined to find out how. This book go through the slaughterhouse the processing plant and reveals how corrupt the meat industry really is. It shows how they care more of profit than of the publics safety. This book will make you think twice, maybe three times before you eat another hamburger or meat product again. While I still eat meat I don't sugesst this book to anyone that gets easily disgusted, because it is quite gruesome. Despite all of that though it is a real eye opener and I suggest this book to just about anyone with the stomach to handle it.

Rating:
Summary: Put me off my burger
Review: Reading books like _Coma_ and _Brain_ will make you a Robin Cook fan. Reading a book like _Toxin_ will just put you off your burger.

It was a very interesting and promising premise. However, the annoying main character and the stereotypical supporting cast made the book, uh, less palatable.

You'll learn some fun science, though! FYI, not every 0157:H7 infection ends like this. People do recover.

Go read his earlier work.

Rating:
Summary: A story of a tempermental doctor...mostly "temper."
Review: I had already heard the tape of "Fast Food Nation : The Dark Side of the All-American Meal", by Eric Schlosser, which I highly recommend, so much about the tainted meat threat, and slaughterhouse conditions didn't shock or surprise me. If you want to know the problems with managed healthcare, just join an HMO, or, better yet, talk to someone that has. However, Dr. Cook may have exposed these important issues to a wider audience, so for that he gets a couple of points.

The main character, the surgeon is flawed, but in the most terrible way. It is not that he is egotistical, as his "ex" frequently points out...that is why MD stands for "medical deity." It is not because he has a vicious temper and is a bit impulsive. After all, if he didn't have that, this book would have been even slower going. (I am glad I listened to the abridged version, BTW.)

It is because he was undeniably STUPID. He goes undercover as an albino Mexican, finds out where all the incriminating evidence is kept, identifies his assailant, and at the climax of the book, in the basement of the slaughterhouse, makes the discovery which would force the police to believe his allegations and follow the evidence to the cause of his daughters death...(which was already established by a lab report on some hamburger samples he had obtained, BTW), but instead of telling his wife to call the cops, he takes "the road less thought out," which leads to more bloodshed, and eventually, exile.

And the dialogue: "But where should we go?" "Let's go to Sweden; I hear their meat inspection is better..." shows that, despite his reported manual skills on an operating table, he should never be allowed to do anything cerebral such as diagnosis or prognosis again.

Actually I had hoped that after all this was done, he finds out that his daughter had actually been poisoned by tainted hamburger his ex-wife or girl friend bought at the local supermarket. But that would have taken the edge of Robin's scalpel, as he hacks away at those uncaring villains, much like his protagonist, wouldn't it?

I have heard other tapes of RC's work, including "Chromosome 6" and "Vector", and this is not one of his better works, by far.