An enlightening and well-supported examination of shocking malfeasance.
An alarming indictment of exploitative medical research.
Medical ethicist and journalist Washington offers considerable evidence of deceptive and devious practices in medical research, which especially impact Black Americans. After World War II, she notes, in response to “forcible human experimentation” inflicted upon prisoners and concentration camp victims, “the Nuremberg Code was imposed to ban research without voluntary consent. Informed consent was enshrined into U.S. law in 1947 to ensure that research would never be imposed on Americans without their knowledge or consent.” However, researchers have found ways to undermine that law, leading to the continuation of nonconsensual experimental abuse. Reprising evidence that she presented in Medical Apartheid (2007), Washington underscores her argument that African Americans historically have been victimized by researchers. “Whether subjected to laissez-faire experimentation on the plantation, early clinics, or other institutions, black Americans were sold to doctors expressly for nineteenth-century research and physician-training purposes,” she writes. This included the testing of reproductive surgical procedures on Black women “because unlike white women, they could not say no.” The infamous Tuskegee syphilis study, which ran from 1932 to 1972, withheld treatment for 600 Black men diagnosed with syphilis, instead maintaining them in an infected state so they could be “tracked, studied, and ultimately autopsied.” In 2010, researchers “intentionally induced hypothermia in unwitting black men who suffered gunshot wounds.” Prisoners and soldiers have repeatedly become research subjects without their consent, but Washington asserts that nonconsensual research—for profit—is becoming more normalized, risking the well-being of all Americans. She advocates clear disclosures to allow the average patient to agree to become an informed participant, including “possible lifestyle effects” of a given study. A patient who refuses or is deemed incapable of consent “should be considered ineligible for research and simply treated with the best known care, as if there were no research study to worry about.”
An enlightening and well-supported examination of shocking malfeasance.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73442-072-2
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Columbia Global Reports
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
An above-average celebrity memoir from an intriguing spirit.
The longtime Hollywood actor looks back.
“What does it mean to be a ham?” asks the author, rhetorically. “Was I a ham? I was naturally and inordinately theatrical. I liked to carry on. I liked attention. I liked extravagant speech. I liked to emote. I liked to talk.” All of these qualities are abundantly evident in Kilmer’s memoir, which is as much a spiritual journey as it is a chronicle of his life and career. The author recounts the depth of his Christian Science faith, his formative years in a family of privilege in Los Angeles, his teenage romance with fellow actor Mare Winningham (“my first real girlfriend”), his training and rebellion at Juilliard, and his decision to leave Broadway for Hollywood. There, he writes, “I was not yet a burgeoning talent but ‘Cher’s lover,’ ” when she was in her mid-30s and he in his early-20s. After scoring big with Tom Cruise in Top Gun, Kilmer turned down Blue Velvet and Dirty Dancing: “Neither part spoke to me.” He played Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors, which he considers “one of the proudest moments of my career.” Marlon Brando and Sam Shepard went from being idols that Kilmer worshipped to becoming friends. He was slated to star as Batman in three films but jumped ship after Batman Forever, which he considers “so bad, it’s almost good.” He married and divorced British actor Joanne Whalley and wooed Daryl Hannah (“kind of the female me, only better”), and he wrote and starred in a one-man show as Mark Twain. When he was hospitalized for surgery due to his throat cancer, he prayed, he read Twain and Christian Science’s Mary Baker Eddy, and he “didn’t wrestle with my angels. I sang and danced with them.” Kilmer was never a shrinking violet, and he still refuses to wilt.
An above-average celebrity memoir from an intriguing spirit. (photos)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-4489-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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
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