TOM BLEAKLEY

Press Release  

 

“SAFE NOWHERE” IS LATEST THRILLER NOVEL BY TRIAL LAWYER 

As more Americans rely on generic drug choices to help defray the rising cost of brand name drug prescriptions, the greater the danger they’ll become victims of an unregulated foreign industry.

Safe Nowhere is the latest novel by author Tom Bleakley that brings to light this real growing danger.     "Safe Nowhere is about the lack of quality and purity of foreign generic drugs that are currently flooding    the American marketplace. Why is this important? Presently, more than 83%  of all U.S. prescriptions are    for generic drugs." said Bleakley.

 

Inspired by true events, art imitates life in this novel based in large part on Bleakley’s experience as a trial attorney facing down the powerful drug companies, and in part, on real-world information which continues to come to light through news media reports uncovering the dangerous reality of the unregulated foreign generic drug  industry. The unregulated drugs are made overseas in countries such as China and India where U.S. oversight is weaker. According to the U.S. Food and Drug  Administration (FDA), there are 526 drug manufacturing plants in India alone making products for the U.S. market.

 

The novel is a fictional account of the clashing of a brilliant and quirky new lawyer, Katie Hornsby, with a powerful and crooked drug company and its deadly foreign generic drug empire.

 

Hornsby, whose eccentric character includes an affinity for baseball statistics, begins her legal career with a small  law firm in Detroit and immediately becomes involved in a massive case against an Indian drug company, Enpact.  The company makes and sells the generic version of a testosterone-enhancing drug called Lorital, manufactured by an American company, Orex, and Katie’s firm represents sixty men, or their families, who were injured or killed using the drug. Powerful forces, both personal and professional, are put in play to impede the efforts of Hornsby and her allies, including a biased judge, an imperious state Supreme Court Chief Justice, a former owner of the company, and a lover who may not be who he claims to be.

 

Bleakley (pronounced Blake-Lee) is a trial lawyer who specializes in handling cases against the pharmaceutical industry as well as pro-bono cases involving constitutional issues and matters of public interest.  He has an extensive background in medicine and pharmacology. Bleakley has received a Ph.D. in development psychology and most of his trial experiences deal with various developmental defects in children whose mothers were exposed to various prescription drugs during pregnancy.  He has co-authored a two volume textbook, A Teaching Program in Psychiatry, and written two previous novels, both dealing with the subject matter of the dangers of prescription drugs.

 

Bleakley’s first novel, Rx for Mass Murder, is a fictionalized account of the impact of Diethylstilbestrol (DES) on young men when their mothers were administered the drug during pregnancy and is currently being revised to reflect recent scientific developments. His second novel, Serenity, was published in September 2012 and describes the tragic impact of a drug company's fraudulent scientific work leading to the marketing of a benzodiazepine-type drug that causes users to kill themselves or others.

 

Bleakley divides his authoring time between Michigan and Lakewood Ranch, Florida. He also plays tuba in several concert bands in both states. He was a college miler at Eastern Michigan University and has run twenty eight marathons. Bleakley grew up in Detroit and is a graduate and former senior class president of Denby High School.

 

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