Rawstory | Former First Lady Laura Bush suggests in her new, soon-to-be-published memoir, 'Spoken from the Heart,' that she and President George W. Bush, as well as several members of their staff, may have been poisoned during a trip to Germany for a G8 Summit. A copy of the book scheduled for release in May was obtained by The New York Times.

"They all became mysteriously sick," reveals the NYT, "and the president was bedridden for part of the trip. The Secret Service investigated the possibility they were poisoned, she writes, but doctors could only conclude that they all contracted a virus. After noting several high-profile poisonings, she wrote, “we never learned if any other delegations became ill, or if ours, mysteriously, was the only one.”'

Ms. Bush also opens up about a deadly car accident she had at age 17 in Midland, Texas, that claimed the life of Mike Douglas,a star athlete and high school friend. Driving her father's Chevy Impala to a drive-in movie theater with a girlfriend late one evening, Ms. Bush ran a stop sign and hit the smaller Corvair driven by the young man.

The former First Lady describes spending many years wracked with guilt, and as the NYT recounts she also lost her faith, "I lost my faith that November, lost it for many, many years," she says. "It was the first time that I had prayed to God for something, begged him for something, not the simple childhood wishing on a star but humbly begging for another human life. And it was as if no one heard. My begging, to my seventeen-year-old mind, had mad no difference. The only answer was the sound of Mrs. Douglas's sobs on the other side of that thin emergency room curtain."'

Ms. Bush also comes to her husband's defense as she rebuts criticism of some of his key decisions, and has harsh words for Mr.Bush's most vocal critics in the House and Senate.