The master at arousing controversy in the world of health and medicine (Health Failure, 1989; Lifespan, 1993; etc.) is at it again, this time with the word on why there's no such thing as a safe drug. Moore knows how to get his message across: with memorable statistics (e.g., prescription drugs are involved in 100,000 deaths a year, more than twice the death toll from auto accidents); with a plenitude of illustrative anecdotes, meant to chill the blood; and with well-documented supplementary research to back up his claims. He begins by looking closely at why, by their nature, the potent prescription drugs of modern medicine pose unpredictable and varied hazards. Moore primarily faults the FDA for inadequate long-term drug testing and poor monitoring of drug safety, but he also assigns blame to doctors themselves for too often prescribing inappropriate drugs and for not giving patients sufficient information about the potential adverse effects of medications. Consumers, too, can compound such commonplace problems if they aren't alert to the risks. Accordingly, the final portion of the book tells us how to protect ourselves. Moore explains some of the medical terms found printed on drug labels and guides readers in how to interpret various warnings. He also suggests appropriate diplomatic tactics to follow when talking with one's physician about remedies; included is a helpful list of questions to bring along. The book's main concern—that too little is known about how frequently prescription drugs cause trouble for patients—may come to seem a tad obvious. Yet one statistic here cited—that consumers have about a one-in-five chance of being treated with an unsuitable or dangerous drug—is, if accurate, genuinely disturbing. The key to improving the system, Moore says, is an informed, concerned, and even demanding public, which this book is designed to create. Vintage Moore—sharp, readable, persuasive.
Pub Date: March 5, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-82998-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
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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