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FATAL EXTRACTION

Name: FATAL EXTRACTION
Author: Mark Carl Rom
ISBN: 0-7879-0991-2

THE STORY BEHIND THE FLORIDA DENTIST ACCUSED OF INFECTING HIS PATIENTS WITH HIV AND POISONING PUBLIC HEALTH

by Mark Carl Rom ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 1997

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Using as his case in point the well-known Kimberly Bergalis incident—in which a dentist was suspected of having infected Bergalis and several other patients with the AIDS virus—Rom probes deeply into the question of how public health policy is made. As the principal investigator of the Government Accounting Office's inquiry into the federal Centers for Disease Control's handling of this case, Rom expected to find that the CDC had made major mistakes. Instead, he found the the agency to have been both competent and thorough. The author (Government and Public Policy/Georgetown Univ.) explores the reasons for criticism of the CDC's role by the media and by advocates of both patients' and health-care workers' interests. While finding that the HIV-positive dentist, David Acer, had indeed infected Bergalis and other patients, the CDC admitted that it was unable to determine how, and without this knowledge, it was hard-pressed to develop a policy aimed at preventing future incidents. After looking at the CDC's consideration of such issues as mandatory testing of health-care workers, practice restrictions, and patient notification, and its eventual development of some rather nebulous guidelines, Rom turns to the response of Congress and the actions by state legislatures, regulators, and courts. Their actions, he finds, have produced a mixture of ambiguous and contradictory rulings. The CDC, he concludes, is the proper agency for making health policy regarding HIV and medical personnel. However, it should have brought together advocates on all sides—patients, health-care workers, medical experts—and engaged them in seeking a common interest. Rom skillfully points out what that common interest is—improving the safety of both patients and health-care providers—and how focusing on competence rather than HIV status benefits both sides. Despite the provocative title, there's no sensationalism here- -just solid research and the calm and persuasive voice of reason.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-7879-0991-2

Page Count: 256

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)