A revealing work that validates the statement that watching policy being made is like watching sausage being made—not a...
A well-researched history of Reye’s syndrome that explores how science, medicine and politics interact.
Largent (Associate Dean/Lyman Briggs Coll. at Michigan State Univ.; Vaccine: The Debate in Modern America, 2012), a childhood survivor of Reye’s syndrome and currently a historian of science, tackles a malady that is still not well-understood. Named for the Australian physician who described it in the 1950s, the syndrome was at first thought to be caused by aflatoxins, then by ingredients in a pesticide, and then, in 1980, by aspirin. Largent relates each of these stories of searches for a cause, focusing mainly on aspirin. There is a brief chapter on therapies developed to treat Reye’s, which was often fatal or left survivors with severe disabilities, but the author’s primary concern is not treatment approaches but rather the long controversy over its link to aspirin. As Largent examines the dispute over whether to require warning labels on bottles of aspirin, he also scrutinizes the actions and interactions—some might say the machinations—of pharmaceutical companies, consumer rights groups, epidemiologists, public health officials, courts and the U.S. Congress. In 1985, the Department of Health and Human Services ordered that warnings about Reye’s syndrome appear on all bottles of aspirin sold in the United States, giving advocates of this measure the opportunity to create a narrative about the triumph of science over big pharma. However, as Largent points out, uncertainty remains. The incidence of Reye’s declined sharply in the 1980s and then virtually disappeared, leaving scientists without cases to investigate to determine whether aspirin was indeed the culprit. The author’s take-home message is that despite all the earnest efforts, sometimes there are no final answers.
A revealing work that validates the statement that watching policy being made is like watching sausage being made—not a sight for the squeamish.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-934137-88-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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