A solidly researched and informative look at the impact of negative drug reactions.
A journalist explores the potential risks of a commonly prescribed antibiotic.
Not long after journalist and entrepreneur Heise took the antibiotic Levaquin, prescribed for a sinus infection,she was diagnosed with tendonitis throughout her entire body. Heise soon discovered a growing community of people who asserted that Levaquin and other fluoroquinolones caused a range of physical and psychological problems that were often difficult to treat. In this debut health book, the author investigates various issues with fluoroquinolones and what she sees as the insufficient regulatory response to them. She explores the history and development of the drugs, their use and misuse, and the warnings that accompany them. The author then steps back to put fluoroquinolones in the broader context of the pharmaceutical industry and the regulatory environment that governs it. The book notes how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration responded to complaints about fluoroquinolones by increasing the number of warnings issued but not limiting use of the drugs. (In the book’s epilogue, Heise notes that although Levaquin’s manufacturer stopped production of that drug in 2017, there are many other types of fluoroquinolones still available.) Over the course of the book, Heise raises points that are little known outside the pharmaceutical industry, such as that the FDA can ask companies to withdraw certain problematic drugs from the market, but has no authority to require it. The book also addresses general questions about the overuse of antibiotics and their impact on the body and the environment. Heise is a strong writer and her book is well organized and informative; she supports her arguments with a substantial bibliography and avoids taking an overly alarmist tone. She addresses issues, such as the corporatization of the medical system, but focuses on concrete actions that ordinary people may take, such as reporting symptoms through the FDA’s website.
A solidly researched and informative look at the impact of negative drug reactions.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73339-050-7
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Birdseed LLC
Review Posted Online: March 4, 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
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
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