Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2018 -

This work represents an optimistic treatise about the developments that form the leading edge of stem cell research. The authors examine their subject at the molecular level, exploring how stem cells can be harvested from adult tissues, and discuss how they are of increasing value as therapeutic agents, and even possible cures, in the treatment of disease. Their enthusiasm arises from the several breakthroughs in recent years that were mere speculation not long ago. The text is organized carefully, covering both technical details and their application. Most interesting are the non-technical implications of the latest research--historical, social, political, and economic. Topics covered include the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and diseases of the brain, as well as the use of cells for growing of body parts, repairing DNA, and the possible prevention and reversal of the effects of aging. The future of cell-based therapies is examined in a concluding section. Smith, formerly CEO of NeoStem, is widely recognized for her work in regenerative medicine; Gomez is a medical journalist. A comprehensive index is included, and the text is well illustrated. With its excellent coverage and wealth of insights, this work will be valuable to a wide audience.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Lyme disease is caused by a tick-borne spirochete (Borrelia burgdorferi); its most typical symptom is a red, bulls-eye rash. Antibiotic treatment soon after infection often cures it. In the remaining cases, the disease does not resolve or it resurfaces, giving rise to what the authors call the "Lyme Wars." There is a substantial lack of consensus among clinicians, researchers, and patients themselves regarding the causes, outcomes, and treatments of these seemingly incurable cases. To complicate matters further, the disease can take many unexpected forms. Fallon and Sotsky (both, Columbia Univ. Medical Center) contend that recent medical advances are clarifying the diagnosis and treatment of these puzzling cases, and the Wars may soon be ending. If so, this is timely. The CDC estimates an incidence rate of 300,000 cases per year in the US, indicating the nation is faced with a Lyme disease epidemic. This work discusses the disease's discovery and epidemiology, clinical symptoms, case studies, treatments, and prevention methods. One cannot say "it's just Lyme disease." Lyme disease is a serious public health concern as well as a personal threat. By presenting an accessible, measured examination of the disease and synthesizing current research, the authors offer readers a great service.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Since recorded history, our scientific understanding of human reproduction was beleaguered by religious taboo and socially biased observations. Many misconceptions about how traits were inherited, what factors determined gender, and the role of sperm and egg in human development still exist among the public, even though the scientific community has long since resolved these fallacies. Gilbert (emer., Swarthmore College) and Pinto-Correia (emer., Univ. of Massachusetts) have penned a captivating book, which serves partly as a primer of modern reproduction and reproductive technologies. Accurate and easy-to-follow scientific descriptions are provided about these topics. However, the book's historical and philosophical stories about reproduction and reproductive technologies form the crux of content. This book is divided into five sections; the first two provide information about human reproduction and the causes of infertility. The third section investigates theological perspectives on human reproduction. The last two sections discuss the biology and ethical issues of the productive sciences, including coverage of cloning, epigenetic restrictions, and eugenics. The scientific information is accurate, contemporary, and easily comprehended; there is no overt bias in the ethical and moral discussions. The authors lead the readers to make their own conclusions on reproductive technology. An excellent addition to health, medical, and bioethics collections.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

For Stegenga (Univ. of Cambridge), medical nihilism is the view that medical interventions are often not effective for improving and sustaining our health and, therefore, we should regard them with a low level of confidence. This is not a view of a specific medical intervention or area of medicine, but a general one of the methodology of medical research. This volume is part of the epistemological turn in contemporary philosophy of medicine. Stegenga's position is developed in three parts. First comes an articulation of a hybrid account of disease and health, along with a discussion on what an intervention must accomplish in order to be effective; second, commentary on the malleability of the methods for testing medical interventions; and finally, an examination of what Stegenga believes is a profound underestimation of the harms of interventions. Stegenga ends with a discussion of a moderate, non-interventionist principle of medicine ("gentle medicine"), and how medical research can be consistent with medical nihilism. Stegenga is charting truly new ground here; Medical Nihilism is radical, challenging, and bold, as the best philosophy often is. Philosophers of medicine, philosophers of science, medical researchers, and those practicing medicine need to read this work.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

An epidemic, wrote historian Charles Rosenberg, unfolds as a pageant. The 1918-20 influenza pandemic was an array of pageants, great and small, rolling across humanity. This "greatest massacre of the twentieth century," which caused perhaps 100 million deaths, was a visitation played out in myriad social, religious, political, and ethnic contexts, seemingly capricious and cruelly lethal to young adults. Its public and private trajectories were obscured and fueled by the dislocations of global conflict. Spinney, a journalist, skillfully organizes vast source material, moving seamlessly between the global and the local. She examines the impotence of mainstream medicine (armed with an ineffective vaccine), the grace and courage of missionaries and humanitarians, the often blundering efforts of overwhelmed public officials, and the self-serving dictates of armies and imperialists. Speculation about an alternate post-epidemic 20th-century generational human history, a glimpse into the mysterious post-influenza encephalitis lethargica, and accounts of the nascent field of virology are of particular interest. The book closes with a note on the modern science of trans-species influenza and alarms for the future. A bibliography, in addition to the existing chapter notes, would have enhanced the book's usefulness.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates and general readers.

Francis, a practicing physician and author, has penned an engaging account of the various changes that the human body goes through over the course of a life-span. In 24 insightful essays, the author asserts synergistic connections between science, philosophy, and humanistic reflection on how body and mind change, and the resulting implications for our relations with the world, ourselves, and those around us. This is an engaging book that offers inspiring observations on the origins and evolution of how humankind has viewed (or neglected to view) the changes in our bodies and minds as we age. Francis conjures a unique mix of science and philosophy that is shared through well-crafted and eloquent expository prose. This text presents a purview on understanding and interpretation of how bodies mediate experience and expectation through the life-span. It is an invaluable read for students across disciplines--the humanities, social sciences, and of course the health professions.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

The public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is like the risks associated with climate change: experts see a crisis emerging in slow motion, but the global community is not prioritizing the actions required now to avert future calamities. This excellent book, written by three health economics experts who served on the UK's Review on Antimicrobial Resistance commission, spells out the complex drivers of AMR and the sets of policy interventions that can incentivize better practices, answering questions such as, Why are so few pharmaceutical companies investing in the development of new antibiotics? Why do so many people develop infectious diseases every year, even though simple behavior changes could prevent many infections? Why do healthcare providers overprescribe antibiotics and underuse the rapid diagnostic tests that would show whether antibiotics are appropriate? Why is it problematic that such massive quantities of antibiotics are given to healthy livestock every year? The main criticism this book is likely to receive is that it is so carefully measured in its approach that it might not sufficiently scare readers about the magnitude of the AMR problem we may be facing in the near future.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/collections.