Convincing advice for reform that should persuade the persuadable.
An expert overview of America’s dysfunctional health care system and good ideas for fixing it.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic started, the U.S. has suffered the most deaths of any nation, with a far higher percentage among the elderly, racial minorities, and the poor. In passionate but lucid, fact-based polemic, Nash, a professor of health policy, and journalist Wohlforth point out the primary cause of this dire situation: a wildly expensive, technology-obsessed, fee-for-service system that emphasizes treating disease over prevention, public health, and addressing the socio-economic determinants of health. In the first half of the book, the authors recount the failures that accompanied a pandemic in which “America performed “uniquely badly.” It turns out that not all the failures were Donald Trump’s fault. Vital institutions, especially the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, performed poorly, and America’s fiercely entrepreneurial medical culture continues to veto lifesaving decisions on cost-effective grounds—even though nearly everyone agrees that these are sometimes wrong. Studies prove that giving the poor enough income, housing, and nutritious food to lift them out of poverty is cheaper than treating the medical and social consequences of that poverty. The pandemic was a gold mine for insurance companies because patients stayed away from doctors in droves but continued to pay premiums. Many rewarded their stockholders, but some purchased hospitals to become “payviders.” This is simply a single-payer system on a local scale, where the providers become responsible for a patient’s overall health rather than delivering episodic care and then sending a bill. Readers will squirm as they learn how American doctors are educated but feel some relief as they read about how medical schools are increasingly teaching compassion and communication and a willingness “to tackle issues not traditionally thought of as a role of a health care provider.” In the second half of the book, Nash and Wohlforth deliver an intelligent prescription for reform; thankfully, many of its features are already in progress.
Convincing advice for reform that should persuade the persuadable.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-538-16425-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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