Sometimes the Price of Youthful Skin is ExcessiveJustin Douglas, a medical student in Houston, agrees to participate in a drug study evaluating patches containing botulinum toxin for facial wrinkling. Omega Pharmaceuticals has a lot riding on the product’s success and approval by the FDA.Meanwhile, Omega’s laboratory in Ireland unknowingly takes delivery of mercury-contaminated component products and begins constructing the patches.Douglas’s classmate, Lisa Penning, joins the University’s drug study. One of the test subjects becomes ill and commits suicide. Her symptoms suggest heavy metal toxicity, and tissue samples reveal mercury poisoning. Douglas’s efforts are obstructed by one of the dermatology residents, Galen Hart. Hart assaults him during a departmental meeting and is suspended from the study, but not before threatening Douglas.A second research patient in Florida displays symptoms of mercury poisoning. When Omega’s CEO learns of her condition, the patient is killed. An unstable Galen Hart drugs Lisa Penning and kidnaps her.Douglas’s search for her leads to a violent encounter with Hart. Omega’s CEO is on the brink of burying the entire affair when he’s visited in his office by a man he’s never met.Alan S. Boyd is a dermatologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and a committed Christian husband and father. He has worked at Vanderbilt for 26 years and lives on a small farm. He plays cello in the church worship band on Sunday mornings and travels annually to Nicaragua on medical missions.
