Cover Image: You Bet Your Life

You Bet Your Life

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Member Reviews

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

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Really interesting facts and history of some of the most radical advances in medicine. I found the writing to be a little sensationalist at times, which I didn’t love. The cliff hangers didn’t feel necessary and gave the book an alarmist vibe. Thanks to netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Science is definitely the new religion. You are almost treated as a pariah if you don't have blind faith in 'the science', and medics are regarded as gods who we should trust absolutely. I am not sure how this happened. Reading Paul A Offit's book is a good cure for it, though, if you can stand the harrowing accounts of the misery and deaths caused by medical mistakes, and new medical innovations. I have to be careful about discussing what he writes about the coronavirus vaccines, but he is shocked by the hubris by which they've been treated, and his discussion is thorough. As he writes, 'virtually every medical breakthrough has exacted a human price'. The first vaccines are not often trouble-free, so, even if they appear to be the only answer to Covid-19, the unquestioned glee that greeted them is somewhat puzzling.

Paul A. Offit includes many horrific events in his book, such as the massive contamination of America's blood supply with HIV, the terrible injuries and deaths caused by the first x-rays, and a man-made polio epidemic caused by mistakes made in manufacturing the vaccine. It's thoroughly researched, but it can be hard to read. It's certainly worth reading, though. I can guarantee that you will get a second opinion before any nasty medical procedure after reading this book, and think twice about putting blind trust in 'the science'.

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Paul Offit, M. D., is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and he teaches vaccinology and pediatrics at the University Pennsylvania. He is also a proficient and entertaining writer, whose latest work of non-fiction is "You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation." The history of medicine has its share of heroes, villains, and martyrs. Certain scientists made great discoveries through hard work and/or happenstance. Others took a chance on unproven procedures that, much to their chagrin, injured or killed their patients.

Using lucid and generally jargon-free language, Offit explores such topics as heart transplants, blood transfusions, anesthesia, antibiotics, vaccines, chemotherapy, and gene therapy. Amazingly, he has distilled reams of material into a succinct, entertaining, timely, and informative work of non-fiction. One of the points that Dr. Offit makes is that, although we are happy to reap the benefits of cutting-edge techniques and pharmaceuticals, modern medicine's advances did not come cheap. Before certain practitioners knew what they were doing, they experimented on men, women, and children, who sometimes paid with their lives.

One particularly compelling chapter deals with radiology's infancy. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, X-ray technicians and their patients often became deathly ill and suffered side-effects that left them mutilated and in horrible pain. It was only later that safety protocols—such as more reliable and sophisticated machines, the use of lead aprons, and strict rules to avoid overexposure—were put into place. Moreover, during the first chemotherapy trials, clinicians injected cancer patients with toxic drugs that, rather than curing them, made them even sicker. "You Bet Your Life" is a well-organized, compelling, and intriguing chronicle of how medicine's catastrophes may, ironically, pave the way for its eventual successes. The bottom line? "Science lurches forward in fits and starts, but it inevitably moves forward." That being said, we must never forget that "humility, not hubris, should rule the day."

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I struggled to get into this book, it took me about month to read. Ultimately, my takeaway was that maybe this topic isn't for me. As I have no specific insights into why I didn't like it, I won't leave a review anywhere else.

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Thoroughly enjoyable! This book combines medical innovations with history.

I was at a house party in December 1967. We girls had a debate about the ethics of heart transplants because Barnard had just done the first human to human heart transplant in South Africa. It was great to read the background of this in the first chapter of You Bet Your Life.

The title leads to questions: would you bet your life? Would you do the first blood transfusion? Accept a vaccine for diphtheria or polio? X-rays? Would you add certain poisons to chemotherapy?

Highly recommended. Thanks to Netgalley and Perseus Bools!

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What a fascinating read and I was surprised how much of a page-turner this is! Given the theme of the podcast I co-host, I was really moved and inspired by the curiosity of the many people profiled in this book. Such curiosity led to major discoveries that improved health and dramatically reduced death and suffering. But such advances are challenging and oftentimes ultimate successes start with failures. Persistence is as important as the curiosity of those who embark upon these medical advances.

Note: If you haven't been vaccinated yet against COVID-19 (Sars-cov-2), please do so if you have access to the vaccine in whatever community you live in. It's such an important step to protect yourself, your family, neighbors, colleagues, and the community where you live. I'm happily vaccinated and encourage others to get vaccinated, too!

Note: I voluntarily requested, read, and reviewed this book. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sending me a temporary digital advance reading copy/advance review (ARC) galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. As always, my opinions are my own and do not represent my co-host or the podcast. I request, read, and review many books prior to publication to explore possible future guests for the podcast. I wish we could interview the author of every one of these books because I'm so impressed by the creativity, thoughtfulness, and wisdom shared through the temporary books I get through NetGalley. I find the idea of simplifying any book into 1-5 stars to be quite silly and reductionist, so I don't participate in that game and instead, just give five stars to each book.

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With this book, Paul Offit takes us on a journey into medical history, showing that "virtually every medical breakthrough has exacted a human price."
The author uses the example of nine of modern medicine's greatest advances to draw lessons on "when and wether to accept new technologies", that is, tips on medical decision making, which is particularly relevant during the pandemic.

He shares these examples in a very enjoyable way, going further than a mere stating of facts, and presenting it in what felt to me like a set of short stories.

It can get a little technical though, so I would recommend having a basic knowledge of science and medicine, or at least being okay with looking up a few things, although the author does a great job of simplifying.

Overall, it was an interesting and instructive read. I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in medicine or enjoys a good non fiction book, as well as those who might be pondering over an important medical decision.

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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A fascinating look at the wild world of medical innovations, from blood transfusions to x-rays. Offit uses the frame of the COVID-19 pandemic to tell stories of experimentation and trial-and-error to find treatments for various diseases. This book will appeal to readers who enjoy medical mysteries, history, biography, and interesting nonfiction on any topic.

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I loved this book. Dr. Offit is a great writer and this book is almost impossible to put down. The chapters are short and again I fell into the trap of I’ll only read one more, which was never just one more. Dr. Offit provides a great discussion of risk, what it means and when it is worthwhile. He uses analogy to explain that there is a risk to doing something, for example, getting a vaccine and a risk of not doing anything like not getting a vaccine but getting a disease instead. He walks through many areas of medicine and the history of medicine in a conversational tone, explaining all the science as he goes along. The timing of this book is excellent given that, at this time, we are in the COVID-19 pandemic and he addresses this in his book. But the book covers much more than just this and, like all his other books, is well worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and Perseus Books, Basic Books for the advance reader copy.

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Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Paul A. Offit, M.D. is Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Offit is also the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He has published more than 130 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of rotavirus-specific immune responses and vaccine safety and is a co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine. He was previously a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is the author of multiple books.

Each chapter of the book deals with a different medical breakthrough such as organ transplants, blood transfusions, anesthesia, x-rays, chemotherapy, gene therapy, and the topic of today, vaccines. Dr. Offit gives us historical background on each subject, which didn’t always start out well. The chapter culminates in the success the medical community is now experiencing with each of these treatments.



I found the book fascinating, thought-provoking and disturbing at turns. Let's take the controversy surrounding the polio vaccine. First, the Salk vaccine was initially tested at the D. T. Watson Home for Crippled Children and the Polk State School, which housed intellectually disabled boys and men. It sounds so uncivilized and cruel by today’s standards. Second, there were 200,000 children in the U.S. that received the vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Reports started coming in of paralysis with 40,000 cases of polio confirmed. In the end, 200 children were left with paralysis, 10 died and use of the vaccine was immediately halted. Yet polio was deadly, leaving hundreds paralyzed or dead each year, so would the outcome have been any different? The Sabin vaccine was introduced which used inactivated poliovirus, however, there is a 1 in 2.4 million chance that you could receive a vaccine that mutates to natural poliovirus. Do you take that chance? I guess we’re lucky our parents thought it was worth the risk as the U.S. is now polio-free. And we should be thanking the Watson Home and Polk State School patients for their part in this. As Dr. Offitt says, “nature reveals its secrets slowly, grudgingly, and often with a human price.”

The chapter on chemotherapy was educational. I had no idea that chemotherapy’s roots began with mustard gas in World War I. Again, just fascinating reading and I hope you find it as educational as I did.

https://candysplanet.wordpress.com/

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I really enjoyed reading historical evolution of medical practices.
It's full of fascinating stories. Because of this it felt like a quick read.

Though, here and there some of the sentences repeat twice or more. It's needs little more editing!

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This was a really interesting read, even though I knew some of what is written here, I found it so awesome to have a book with all of this together.

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Thank you Netgalley and Publishers for this digital ARC.

This book was interesting even not being a usual nonfiction reader. While I learned somethings I hadn't understood previously about the COVID-19 pandemic, I wasn't expecting it to be a part of this book. The book as a whole explores topics that the general public really only know at a surface. The only con I would see, is like many references before it, this could eventually become slightly outdated especially with the key notes of the recent pandemic having constant new advancements in the field of medicine.

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I loved this story of medical history. Ranging from the beginnings of X-Rays to gene therapy, this book is full of stories that teach you a lot about the development of medical science and that sometimes things go wrong.

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Startling Look At (Mostly Relatively Recent) Medical History. I consider myself a fairly well-read guy who is fairly knowledgeable about a *very* wide range of topics. Here, Offit shares stories of medical breakthroughs - including several which are now literally every day occurrences - and how the initial days of these breakthroughs weren't always so routine. Indeed, many of the stories Offit shares about these breakthroughs - some of which were still being litigated within the last decade - are quite horrific, both from the practitioners really not understanding what they were doing and in some cases when they *did* know what they were doing - and did it anyway. Including one tale in particular about the (now) famous Jonas Salk himself that was quite disturbing to read. In the end, the book does exactly what it sets out to do - shows that there is always inherent risk in any medical procedure, particularly novel ones, and that often times it is those whose lives will be cut short with or without the procedure that take the risks that ultimately reduce those risks for later people and indeed enhance the lives of people they will never know many years down the line. And yes, all of this is wrapped around the current debate over the COVID-19 vaccines - though while these are discussed, they are not actually a core component of the text itself. The discussion here is current circa early November 2020 and is slightly outdated even as I read the text in early February 2021 - and certainly will have advanced even further by the time of the book's actual publication in mid September 2021. Ultimately a truly fascinating read that is equally disturbing and enlightening, this book is very much recommended.

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