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BOOKS BY AND FOR MEMBERSby Ruth Winter Silver Lies by Ann Parker (NASW), published by Poisoned Pen Press. Would you like to write a novel? Many science writers think about it, but Ann Parker has done it. In her own words, for this column: “Don’t get me wrong. I love science writing,” Parker said. “It is, after all, my day job. As one of a handful of writers for Science & Technology Review magazine at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, I’m expected to handle assignments on any and all topics that fly through the door: supercomputing technology? Sure! Single-cell proteomics? You bet! Quantum dots? No problem. And yet, I had this yen to write fiction. But what about the adage ‘Write what you know’? I find the unknown to be far more seductive. So I searched for a ‘hook,’ something that would grab me, and propel me down the path. In 1997, I found it in a bit of unknown family history. Upon hearing for the first time that my grandmother had been raised in turn-of-the-century Leadville, Colorado, my reaction was: ‘Leadville? What’s that?’ My uncle responded: ‘You’ve never heard of Leadville? Why, it was only the biggest silver rush in the state! One of the toughest, most hell-raising places around! So, I read up on Leadville. Discovered that, yes indeed, it had quite a history. Here was a place that, in its time, had people rushing in from all corners of the earth with the expectations of getting rich quick and easy. Just like, well, just like Silicon Valley in the 1990s. All I had to do was write—at night, when the kids were asleep—and do some research: about Leadville and Colorado in 1879, about silver mining, about historical silver assay techniques, about Victorian customs and dress, about women in the historical West, and saloons in the Rocky Mountain frontier. I was hooked, and Silver Lies was born.” The book takes place as 1879 draws to a close. Like today’s headlines, her tale involves corruption, love, and blackmail. And if you think science writers can’t write fiction, Silver Lies won the mystery category of the 2002 Colorado Gold Writing Contest plus a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Parker can be reached at parker10@flash.net.
Here’s another story behind the story. Marilyn Chase is a medical reporter at the Wall Street Journal and a longtime NASW member. In this, her first book, she writes about the 1900 outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco, caused by ship-borne rats. The plague was denied by local politicians and the business community. The protracted cover-up allowed the infection to spread beyond the city into the rural West. Of the two main figures charged with managing the plague’s eradication effort, Joseph Kinyoun is today recognized as the father of the NIH and Rupert Blue became the only doctor to serve simultaneously as Surgeon General and AMA President. Chase, who covers infectious diseases for the WSJ, among other aspects of the health beat, says she began to get seriously interested in plague in 1994, after writing about an outbreak in India that triggered CDC surveillance at U.S. airports to guard against an imported case. When CDC officials mentioned that plague is endemic in western wildlife from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast, she said she continued researching the literature and reading more out of a personal fascination. “I got serious about turning my research into a book project. I used my vacation to visit the National Archives, in Washington, to explore the primary sources about the San Francisco plague. It was a treasure trove of century-old letters, telegrams, autopsy reports, and news clippings. Based on that research, I wrote a proposal and Random House bought it in February 2000. Taking a one-year book leave, I researched the lives and backgrounds of Drs. Kinyoun and Blue, from letters and photographic collections in university archives to Blue family descendants who shared personal letters that had never been out of family hands. The plague epidemic in San Francisco, which first struck the city’s Chinatown, prompted a racist quarantine and discrimination by white citizenry against the victims of disease—a pattern we have seen with AIDS. The theme of the cover-up of a new disease bears an eerie resemblance to the early days of SARS, when Chinese officials minimized the scope of disease. Their error wasn’t unique, for San Francisco did the same thing in 1900, in a cover-up that stretched from city hall to the governor’s mansion to the nation’s capitol. I hope my book captures certain perennial themes about epidemic control and fear of loss and stigmatization that leads to denial and cover-up.” Chase is back at her full-time job at WSJ, writing medical news and features while continuing to do book-related speaking events. Chase can be reached at marilyn.chase@wsj.com or, 415-765-6125. The press representative for the book is Todd Doughty at tdoughty@randomhouse.com.
I know the story behind this book because a number of years ago I interviewed Bernstein, a diabetic and physician’s husband. Bernstein found he could control his blood sugar with a glucose-monitoring device then used solely by physicians. He convinced a prominent researcher to test his method on other people. The study confirmed Bernstein’s observations, but the professor received the accolades. Bernstein, then 45-years old, enrolled in medical school and is now a leading diabetologist. The book includes information on new technology, fresh methods of treatment, and low-carb recipes. In private practice in Mamaroneck, NY, he strongly disagrees with the American Diabetes Association’s advice to “make starches the star” of the diabetic diet. Bernstein, a diabetic for 57 years, maintains people with diabetes should minimize carbohydrates and eat mostly protein and vegetables. He also believes that the ADA advice of “large industrial doses of insulin” is wrong. He says that it produces unpredictable effects upon blood sugar. ADA also advocates the use of protamine-containing insulin, he continues, and supports mixing different insulins in the same syringe. He, on the other hand, advises small “physiologic” insulin doses that emulate what non-diabetics make in amount and timing. He also maintains that insulins contain the antigenic protein protamine should not be used and he opposes mixing two different insulins in the same syringe. A fellow of the American College of Nutrition and of the American College of Endocrinology, Bernstein can be reached at www.diabetes-normalsugars.com and by phone at 914-698-7525. The press representative for the book is Alison Vandenberg at alison.vandenberg@aoltwhg.com or 212-522-8074. The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth by Barbara Seaman (NASW), published by Hyperion. I also know the story behind this book having been friendly with Seaman for many years. For almost a century, women have been taking some form of estrogen to combat the effects of menopause and aging, and, more recently, to prevent a whole host of diseases including osteoporosis, tooth loss, Alzheimer’s diseases, heart ills, and breast cancer. Add to that the birth control pill and millions of women have been exposed to significant doses of this powerful female hormone. I remember the personal attacks Seaman suffered concerning her first book, The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill. Her exposé, however, became the basis of a U.S. Senate hearing, at which point she was credited as “responsible for the first patient warning on any prescription drug.” A founder of the National Women’s Health Network which refuses money from the drug industry as part of its charter, she explains in her new book “how so many smart, healthy women have been duped into taking a carcinogen like estrogen for so long.” In 2002, of course, large women’s health studies began revealing that estrogen may cause more problems in patients than it was correcting or preventing. Seaman describes the earliest purveyors of estrogen, from a well-meaning British doctor who lost control of the marketing of DES and therefore inadvertently led to a DES baby crisis, to Nazi experimentation with estrogen. She presents the situation in which “an experiment of this proportion could have been conducted without oversight, intervention, or real knowledge as to what the effects would be.” She connects the dots between the faultiest studies by pharmaceutical companies and the financial arrangements these companies made with influential researchers and physicians. When Seaman began investigating in the 1960s, most of the scientists who had developed these hormones were still alive, and over the years, she interviewed many of them. Some of the very first scientists to synthesize estrogens in the 1930s, she writes, showed her proof that the cancer-causing properties of the hormone were being covered up, and they urged her to “warn the public that it was being deceived by misguided members of the medical community in cahoots with the drug industry.” Seaman can be reached at 212-580-1838. Publicist is Christine Ragasa at www.hyperionbooks.com or 212-456-0175. Inspiring Science: Jim Watson and the Age of DNA edited by John Inglis, Joe Sambrook, and Jan Witkowski (NASW), published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Watson, of course, is one of the most famous contemporary scientists. Known not only for his role in the discovery of the DNA double helix and his leadership of the Human Genome Project and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, but also for his outspokenness. This book of 43 essays has been published to celebrate Watson’s 35 years at Cold Spring Harbor. The contributors were chosen to cover the whole of Watson’s career, ranging from his days as graduate student in Indiana, through his years as a scientist at Harvard to his leadership of Cold Spring Harbor. It includes essays on the Human Genome Project, as well as his significant contributions to science writing including his bestseller, The Double Helix, and his textbooks, especially The Molecular Biology of the Gene. Contributors to this text include Nobel Laureates Renato Dulbecco, Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, Phil Sharp, and Max Perutz, as well as more unusual contributions from, for example, Cold Spring Harbor’s architect. There are reprints of Watson’s most significant papers and previously unpublished pictures. Witkowski can be reached at witkowsk@cshl.edu. Publicist is Ingrid Benirschke at benirsch@cshl.edu. Significance of Koizumi’s Visit to North Korea (Edited by) Yoneyuki Sugita: (Monograph by) Sandra Katzman (NASW), published by Small World Press, Japan. There are a dozen monographs in this collection, including many in Japanese. Katzman says that her contribution was based on the idea of content analysis of newspaper editorials. The completion of the project required a collaborator who could do statistics. She says that “fortuitously, a colleague at the National Defence (sic) Academy of Japan was willing to work with me.” The preface and contents can be viewed at www.smallworld.co.jp/sw2e.html. There is no publicist but Katzman can be contacted at s.katzman@stanfordalumni.org. Toshiko Sugino can be contacted at sugino@cc.nda.ac.jp. How to Prepare for the College Board SAT II: Biology E/M Test 2002. 13th Revised Edition by Maurice Bleifeld (NASW), published by Barron’s Educational Series. A retired high school principal and biology teacher at the Bronx High School of Science, Maurice Bleifeld first wrote this book in 1963. The latest edition is based on the modern emphasis of the test on ecology (E) and molecular biology (M). The book contains an introductory mini-diagnostic test, as well as four full-length practice tests. In addition, there is a review of the subject of biology, followed by questions and answers with explanations. An appendix provides a glossary to biological terms. Bleifeld can be reached at 212-758-6064. The press representative for the book is Steve Matteo at 800-645-3476 ext. 208. # Send material about new books to Ruth Winter, 44 Holly Drive, Short Hills, NJ 07078, or e-mail ruthwrite@aol.com. Include the name of the publicist and appropriate contact information, as well as how you prefer members to get in touch with you. |
