Serious charges voiced in strong language, certain to be met with rebuttals from those whose ox has just been gored, and a...
The scientist who discovered the prostate specific antigen in 1970 explains emphatically why he considers use of the PSA test for routinely screening healthy men for cancer to be a profit-driven national disaster.
With the assistance of science writer Piana, Ablin (Pathology/Univ. of Arizona Coll. of Medicine) pulls no punches in this attack on what he sees as the misdeeds of the urology community, the biotech industry and the Food and Drug Administration. The author explains that PSA is not a cancer-specific biomarker, and he asserts that the use of the PSA as a diagnostic test has crippled millions of healthy men, afflicting them with incontinence and impotence. A high PSA number leads to a biopsy, which leads to surgery. The author charges the FDA with negligence for allowing the profit-motivated biotech industry to market the PSA test as a cancer test and greedy urologists in directing frightened men to undergo unnecessary biopsies and prostatectomies. Ablin’s account is replete with names of specific individuals, companies, agencies and organizations, and he provides excerpts from documents and letters to back up his charges. Conversations with men who have undergone prostate surgery put a human face on the alarming statistics he provides. In addition to the human suffering that their stories reveal, the cost to Medicare of prostate surgery is hefty. While misuse of PSA is Ablin’s central theme, he sees this situation as representative of a larger problem: science for sale. Citing the revolving door between the FDA and big medicine, the author asserts that those charged with protecting American health care consumers are often in tacit collusion with those who come before them for approval of their products.
Serious charges voiced in strong language, certain to be met with rebuttals from those whose ox has just been gored, and a must-read for any man concerned about his prostate.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-137-27874-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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