When I was in middle school and high school, I went on a medical thriller binge. I think it started because of how much I liked Jurassic Park. I read all of Michael Crichton's other books, and then started looking for similar authors. Robin Cook was another one I read a lot of.
I had gotten it into my head that these were Science Fiction. Some of them - Jurassic Park, and a Robin Cook novel about an alien invasion, definitely count. I wouldn't understand that what I was looking for was more accurately a science/medical thriller until I was actually working in a library.
Aside from Jurassic Park, the only book I read from this period that stands out in my memory is The Plague Tales, by Ann Benson. (Below is the review I wrote for it rereading it as an adult for my library's quarterly genre review.)
One interesting thing about this book, which took place in part in the then-future of 2005, was that the world was recovering from a global epidemic. Air travel had been restricted - those “lucky” enough to be allowed to fly were subjected to full-body latex suits, diagnostic tests involving the drawing of blood upon landing, and, if resisting the latter, arrest.
I actually hadn't really given the "future" setting of this book much thought until I saw an article yesterday entitled "I Just Flew and it Was Worse Than I Thought," accompanied by a picture of two airline passengers in full respirator masks (for what it's worth, the article is from early May* and the accompanying photo was somewhat misleading).
*And who would have ever thought “I’m not gonna bother reading this 5-month-old, out-of-date article?”
But it also made me think about some of the assumptions made. It seems that 20+ years ago we had more faith in how we would handle a pandemic - and specifically how willing people would be to comply with fairly stringent restrictions. It's some food for thought.