The novel Mortal Fear by Robin Cook in 1988 deals with the issues of euthanasia hospital and increasing cost of keeping elderly people alive.

Alvin Hayes, a former classmate of Jason's at Harvard, asks to speak to him about his recent strange caseload.

Hayes is a shifty, twitchy man whose personal life is a subject of some question who seems unduly paranoid, and Jason wonders if the resident mad scientist has gotten into something illicit.

At dinner Hayes, while talking about his genetic research on aging, suddenly begins expelling blood violently.

Jason begins investigating the connection between the man's sudden demise, his nervous demeanor, and the patients in his hospital who have all been admitted with what seems to be a mutant strain of progeria that killed them in mere days.