You Bet Your Life - by Paul A Offit (Hardcover)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"Virologist Paul. A. Offit shows ... from antibiotics and vaccines to x-rays and genetic engineering, risk, and our understanding of it, have shaped the course of modern medicine, paving the way for its greatest triumphs and tragedies. By telling the stories of the events--and of the frequent hypocrisy and cravenness of the characters at their center--Offit shows how risk, and failure, have driven innovation, and importantly, how by examining our mistakes we can make better medical predictions and decisions going forward ... The history is fascinating in its own right, but the worldwide rush to create a coronavirus vaccine only makes learning from the lessons of history essential. Weighing the uncertainties of a treatment against its potential benefits is one of medicine's greatest ethical dilemmas, and Offit examines it from every angle. He explores not just how patients and their families respond to risk but how everyone from physicians and researchers to universities and regulators do, too, and how that ultimately determines what treatments are put forward. Not everyone has the same goal. And too often the patient's health is secondary. But as Offit shows, we can all minimize risk and failure by learning how to recognize conflicts of interest, to draw inferences from animal models, and to evaluate risk, even when we have limited data. Along the way, Offit asks who should decide what risks are acceptable, and who should pay when the results are fatal ... Offit argues that we are gambling whatever we do--and that we need to take that seriously, whether we pursue a treatment or decide to do nothing at all. The answers aren't simple, and the outcomes are life or death. Examining these questions with the compassion of a pediatrician and the rigor of a scientist, Offit reminds us that we all have a role to play in ensuring that medicine upholds its very first principle: to do no harm"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>One of America's top physicians traces the history of risk in medicine--with powerful lessons for today </b> <p/>Every medical decision--whether to have chemotherapy, an X-ray, or surgery--is a risk, no matter which way you choose. In <i>You Bet Your Life</i>, physician Paul A. Offit argues that, from the first blood transfusions four hundred years ago to the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine, risk has been essential to the discovery of new treatments. More importantly, understanding the risks is crucial to whether, as a society or as individuals, we accept them. <p/>Told in Offit's vigorous and rigorous style, <i>You Bet Your Life </i>is an entertaining history of medicine. But it also lays bare the tortured relationships between intellectual breakthroughs, political realities, and human foibles. Our pandemic year has shown us, with its debates over lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, how easy it is to get everything wrong. <i>You Bet Your Life </i>is an essential read for getting the future a bit more right.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"Riveting and filled with fascinating details...His latest book--YOU BET YOUR LIFE-- couldn't be more timely." <br> --<i><b>Nature</b></i><br><br>"Offit is a good storyteller, and he has some terrific stories to tell." <br> --<b>Cass R. Sunstein</b>, <i><b>The New York Times Book Review</b></i><br><br>"A well-written and informative look at the reality of medical advancement, including poignant examples of its often-fatal repercussions." <br> --<i><b>Library Journal</b></i><br><br>"The way Offit tells the story of each medical advance is fascinating...this thorough survey is as entertaining as it is informative." <br> --<i><b>Publishers Weekly</b></i><br><br>"Offit is a fluid storyteller armed with decades of knowledge, and he provides an educative...reading experience."--<i><b>Kirkus</b></i><br><br>"In <i>You Bet Your Life</i>, Offit elucidates, using compelling case studies, how we come to know what we know in science and medicine: through a mix of imagination, experimentation, successes, misses and tragedies. It's <b>a riveting story of what is possible when confidence and humility meet, and what seems inevitable when hubris dominates.</b> Illuminating the Covid-19 pandemic and how we got to safe and effective vaccines so quickly, it is also <b>a timeless read</b> for anyone interested in science, ethics, discovery and how we can better prevent the next pandemic."--<i><b>Chelsea Clinton, vice chair of the Clinton Foundation</b></i><br><br>"What makes Paul Offit so special, beyond his extraordinary talents as a physician, vaccine-developer, and children's advocate, is his ability to bring complicated scientific subjects to life. <i>You Bet Your Life </i>is the latest example--a thoughtful, beautifully written account of the risks and rewards of medical technology told through the eyes of the inventors and their patients. Tragedy is an inevitable part of the process; breakthroughs come at a human cost, even those that have saved untold millions of lives. To read this elegant book is grasp these ethical complexities--with a masterful medical writer as our guide."--<i><b>David Oshinsky, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History for Polio: An American Story</b></i><br><br>"Paul Offit is a national treasure. He has emerged from the ranks of doctors and scientists as one of the world's most effective communicators. In <i>You Bet Your Life</i> he astutely tracks the development of a variety of monumental medical breakthroughs constantly reminding us that each carried with it not only predictable and unpredictable risks but terrible failures. It is a hard message that most of us, in thinking about the price of biomedical progress, do not want to hear. But post a horrific pandemic where blunders abounded and unnecessary deaths occurred at a staggering rate, we had better heed his clear message that acknowledging and managing risk, not pretending it does not exist or simply ignoring the truth, is the key to a healthier future for you, your children and their descendants." --<i><b>Arthur Caplan, Mitty Professor of Bioethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine</b></i><br><br>"This book is exquisitely timed for a moment in which biomedicine has delivered miraculous vaccines to a public disastrously skeptical of science. In a series of vignettes including botched polio vaccines and the first death in a gene therapy treatment, Offit shows that while science must maintain its humility in the face of complexity, the public can't afford to lose its trust in medical science despite the inevitable tragedies that occur in pursuit of progress."--<i><b>Arthur Allen, author of Vaccine</b></i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Paul A. Offit, MD, </b>is the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. A professor of vaccinology and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the author of nine books, he lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
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