Sonny Whitelaw

Author's note: The following text for the jacket was written in 2004 just prior to the 2005 publication. Since then, events have moved rapidly and an increasing number of people outside the scientific community are demonstrating that they do indeed care, and are willing to act.
Sonny Whitelaw June 2007

The US government is under attack for its stance on greenhouse emissions, yet in the background, away from the camera’s eye, the real world is in decay. The Rhesus Factor is fiction, but it is up to the reader to determine just how much so, for all the issues are real the research and outcomes are happening now, yet no one seems to notice or care. Have we really reached the point of no return? Coupled with the latest scientific research conducted by the Pentagon, this book is closer to fact than we realise and there is very little we can do to change the future.

Marine engineer Kristin Baker advises the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu on environmentally sustainable development projects. After meeting US Navy Commander Nicholas Page, she discovers her unwitting role in the Exodus Project, a scheme to protect the West's interests in the face of global warming. But what neither know is that a stealth virus has quietly become a global pandemic; one that health authorities cannot stop. For this virus hasn't emerged from an African jungle or a remote Chinese province, it's come from within our own DNA.

The Rhesus Factor is terrifyingly plausible, for it not only could happen, it is happening.

The Rhesus Factor is a work of fiction; a suspense thriller grounded in hard scientific, geopolitical and economic fact.

It didn’t happen overnight, but once upon a time hundred year floods - and droughts - happened once a century, not every two years, beaches never closed because of pollution, fiscal cutbacks weren't shutting hospitals and abandoning public health care programs. There was no shortage of doctors, nurses and medical specialists, nor did you have to wait up to 40 years (that's not a misprint) for dental treatment if you were unable to afford a private dentist. Most kids in Western countries (yes, most, more than 50%) were not on medication for respiratory or allergy problems, attention deficit disorders, diabetic/obesity disorders, and girls as young as 16 didn't get breast cancer. It was unthinkable for an insurance conglomerate like HIH (Australia) and Enron (US) to collapse, infectious diseases were on the decline, terrorists didn’t kill thousands and we didn’t lose hundreds of species each and every day.

We keep redefining what’s acceptable, raising the benchmark with baby steps. But what we’re really doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We can shuffle them around all we want, give them a coat of paint, hell, we can toss them overboard but it won’t change the inevitable. The scary thing is, first class or steerage, we’re all on this ship together.

Because we have become desensitised, overburdened with information, few people have time to consider where our voyage is taking us. Even if it were possible to stop now, this minute, our course is already set, momentum is doing the rest.

Scientists tend to take a somewhat narrow view of their world. Ocean and atmospheric scientists, for example, don't know much about virology, and geneticists don't know the first thing about plastics manufacturing. However in recent years there is an increasing trend by Nobel prize winning scientists, economists, and Pulitzer prize winning journalists to piece the tapestry together. Even more pertinent are the recent revelations that the Bush administration is deliberately and systematically distorting scientific facts that run counter to the administration's political agendas.

This web site includes information on the factual elements in The Rhesus Factor. As writing Rhesus began in 1995, many links and references are outdated.

Cause and effect, and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Those principles are commonplace and indisputable. The Rhesus Factor by Sonny Whitelaw demonstrates with painful clarity that we ignore cause and effect at our peril. Perhaps the most frightening book of recent years, Whitelaw's thriller builds an all too plausible scenario of what might happen should our ecosphere decide to apply an equal and opposite reaction to our actions.

Fast-paced and grounded in solid research, the book charts not only the breakdown of ecosystems in the wake of global warming, but the breakdown of society that will be an inescapable result. It is precisely in the devastating detail of the wreckage of everyday life that the book is at its most explosive. While Joe Voter may dismiss global warming as a theory that doesn't affect him, the very real prospect of losing home, livelihood, educational facilities and medical care is bound to strike a chord.

This potential for far-reaching political impact was only confirmed when a major US publisher refused to go ahead with The Rhesus Factor; opting to take a conservative stance after the controversy surrounding the movie release of The Day After Tomorrow.

Although fiction, I now know that some of the events in the book could happen in the future. The effects of global warming are evident, as is how this has put stress on the world, leading to world events that include terrorism, environmental vandalism and a lifestyle that we do not want for our future generations. I encourage all members to buy this book when it becomes available.

- Barbara Stone MP for Queensland, Australia. Excerpt from speech to Queensland State Parliament [complete speech]

This is an exciting, fast-paced thriller, set in an all too possible near future. The science is as sound as the writing. The book is reminiscent of Michael Crichton at his best.

If you want excitement, The Rhesus Factor is the book for you. This is a thriller similar to Matthew Riley’s books, but the quality is far better. The characters, the action, the setting are far more believable. Reading the book, and even more, looking at the website, I get a strong feeling that Ms Whitelaw knows what she is writing about…I dare you to read it, you may learn something about our immediate future.

- Dr Bob Rich, author of “Sleeper Awake” & “The Making of a Forest Fighter”

This book would never have existed without Frieda Landau, who dedicatedly midwifed it through years of labour. Thanks to Dr. Kenneth Moise for answering my many questions on Rhesus disease, Trevor Long for teaching me to live with a moral dilemma, Jacky Sach and Robert Stephenson for pointing out the obvious and the Warcouncil for keeping me sane. And lastly, to George W. Bush for making it all come true.