Dopesick (2018). Beth Macy

Dopesick(2018) Beth Macy

Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

 

Wow.  I thought I knew something about the opioid crisis but it turns out I had no idea. For instance, I had no notion that a drug company (Perdue Labs) had the ability to reformulate oxycontin into a form that would be more difficult to abuse but waited to do this until their patent expired on the original.  

 

The big misconception is that you cannot get addicted if you just use narcotics for “true” pain.  That is completely wrong.  Macy makes that clear in case after case of people who are put on oxycontin after injury or surgery and cannot get off and eventually resort to heroine. Macy also spends a good deal of time dispelling the myth that abstinence is the only solution. Not a very cheerful book but if you want to learn what is happening around us this is it.

Book Review: Bad Blood (2018) John Carryrou

Bad Blood:  Secrets and Lies in a Silicone Valley Startup  (2018) John Carreyrou

Thomas Edison must be rolling over in his grave.  Elizabeth Holmes had a lot of hubris to name her miserable lab tester after the great inventor.  Well, turns out she lied about everything else too.  John Carryrou’s book is riveting.   It still does not answer the question of how does a smart Stanford drop out presume to create a start up reinventing the complicated enterprise of laboratory medicine.  When I first heard of Theranos I figured that they had created an algorithm to convert results based on fingerstick to that with venipuncture – two different sorts of solutions.  Turns out they never even considered the differences and just worked on trying to miniaturize the process to create a unity that could be placed in a patient’s home.

Anyway, many people were hurt – patients, employees, investors.   Other than Holmes and her boyfriend others should be accountable - specifically the Board of Directors who were all ignorant of health care and were mostly retired politicians.  Go figure.

Read the book.

Book Review: Only Human. (2018). Sylvain Neuvel

Only Human(2018) Sylvain Neuvel

Book three of Neuval’s Themis Files series.  My least favorite. (Sleeping Giants and Waking Gods)  This is basically a family affair with Victor and Eva (and Rose as a surrogate mother) trying to work out what actually happened on the world of Esat Ekt.  Eva’s alien boyfriend, Ekim, becomes a casualty of their escape back to Earth with itself has become a world dominated by the remaining giant robot, Lapetus, which the USA is using to dominate the rest of the world.  When Victor, Rose, and Eva return with Themis it is the Russians that take control of them and it is game on.  Of course Rose figures it out with the help of Mr. Burns who is not in jail for his sin of alien heritage.  

It is an interesting concept but I had hoped for a little more imagination in books two and three rather then just dragging out a really good book one idea.  Of course the is the standard for SF now a days.  Take a good book and stretch it to 3 -  maybe 5 or 6.   Hopefully Sylvain Neuval will come out with something new soon.