by Jonathan M. Berman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 2020
Berman dispels anti-vax fears and subterfuges with straight, scientific evidence.
A primer on the history of vaccination and the anti-vaccination movement.
Berman seeks to present a complete picture of the anti-vaccination crusade from the 19th century to the present. Vaccination, which introduces an agent that creates immunity against a pathogen without causing the disease itself, can be traced as far back as the 16th century in China and India. But the first anti-vaccination response, involving the treatment of smallpox, was recorded in the mid-18th century in Britain. Perhaps understandably, there was a visceral repulsion to polluting one’s body with unknown, possibly toxic materials. Here and elsewhere, Berman deliberately investigates the psyche of anti-vaxxers to see what makes them tick. While he appreciates that many anti-vaccine parents want the best for their children, a host of factors have gotten in the way of good science. In the 19th century, there were issues of social class, individual rights, mandatory vaccination, the cost of treatment, preserving the integrity of the body, and poor laws that stripped the destitute of “the last dignity they were afforded: control of their own bodies.” In the 20th and 21st centuries, the greatest influencer has been the media, which has allowed misinformation to spread like wildfire without giving the same airtime to the refutations of fearmongers. Subsequently discredited papers associating vaccination with autism made a big splash, but the arguments against the flawed studies scarcely caused a media ripple. Also causing wariness on the part of anti-vaxxers is distrust of government and pharmaceutical companies as well as vaccine hesitancy encouraged by some religious sects, and countless crackpot remedies have flourished in lieu of scientifically sound medical practices. Berman acknowledges the difficulty in changing the mind of an anti-vaxxer, and he stresses that much more can be accomplished through building trust in scientific research and community-based activism than mocking on Facebook.
Berman dispels anti-vax fears and subterfuges with straight, scientific evidence.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-262-53932-6
Page Count: 296
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
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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