An engrossing exposé of scientific practice in America.
A science book discusses the deplorable state of the field in the United States, the result of bias, greed, and governmental dysfunction.
Ruscetti was skeptical of authority in all its forms from an early age and turned to a career in science, hoping that intellectual irreverence would find a home there. But he encountered a professional world dominated by naked careerism, blind dogma, propaganda, and bottomless vindictiveness. The author enjoyed a brilliantly accomplished career as a virologist, working for decades at the National Cancer Institute, and was part of the team that identified the first pathogenic human retrovirus, HTLV-1. While studying AIDS in the 1980s, he worked closely with Anthony Fauci—Ruscetti found him to be as mendacious as he was ambitious. The author claims that Fauci’s neglect and even repression of important research likely slowed down the fight against the deadly disease. Ruscetti convincingly blames governmental malfeasance for establishing a system that permits bureaucrats like Fauci and Robert Gallo—one of the author’s supervisors—to prosper: “People like Gallo and Fauci thrive because of a system put in place by President Richard Nixon, in which a few leading government scientists were given unprecedented control over funding decisions, while at the same time creating a subservient class of researchers who must vie for their approval.” Mikovits tells a similar story, if more personally harrowing—she claims that she was persecuted for her work demonstrating the contamination of blood and vaccine supplies. While her account is as lucidly compelling as Ruscetti’s, she can veer into conspiracy theory—she contends that Covid-19 was part of “a planned mass murder to cover-up tens of millions of people infected with animal retroviruses because of a contaminated blood supply and contaminated vaccines.” It’s worth noting that Ruscetti does not agree with her. For all her intellectual excesses, Mikovits’ remembrance is a powerful one and confirms Ruscetti’s account of the scientific community as one plagued by incompetence and venality. Especially during a time in which the authority of that community is a matter of dispute, the two scientists’ book—written with Heckenlively—is an important contribution to a gathering debate.
An engrossing exposé of scientific practice in America.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5107-6468-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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