Search results for ""Author Mark A. Largent""

"A fascinating history of a public health crisis. Compellingly written and insightful, Keep Out of Reach of Children traces the discovery of Reye's syndrome, research into its causes, industry's efforts to avoid warning labels on one suspected cause, aspirin, and the feared disease's sudden disappearance. Largent's empathy is with the myriad children and parents harmed by the disease, while he challenges the triumphalist view that labeling solved the crisis." --ERIK M. CONWAY, coauthor of Merchants of Doubt "Largent's engaging and honest account explores how medical mysteries are shaped by prevailing narratives about venal drug companies, heroic investigators, and Johnny-come-lately politicians." --HELEN EPSTEIN, author of The Invisible Cure "Fascinating...Thought-provoking." --Booklist "Well-researched...A revealing work." --Kirkus Reviews Reye's syndrome, identified in 1963, was a debilitating, rare condition that typically afflicted healthy children just emerging from the flu or other minor illnesses. It began with vomiting, followed by confusion, coma, and in 50 percent of all cases, death. Survivors were often left with permanent liver or brain damage. Desperate, terrorized parents and doctors pursued dramatic, often ineffectual treatments. For over fifteen years, many inconclusive theories were posited as to its causes. The Centers for Disease Control dispatched its Epidemic Intelligence Service to investigate, culminating in a study that suggested a link to aspirin. Congress held hearings at which parents, researchers, and pharmaceutical executives testified. The result was a warning to parents and doctors to avoid pediatric use of aspirin, leading to the widespread substitution of alternative fever and pain reducers. But before a true cause was definitively established, Reye's syndrome simply vanished. A harrowing medical mystery, Keep Out of Reach of Children is the first and only book to chart the history of Reye's syndrome and reveal the confluence of scientific and social forces that determined the public health policy response, for better or for ill. Mark A. Largent, a survivor of Reye's syndrome, is the author of Vaccine: The Debate in Modern America and Breeding Contempt: The History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States. He is a historian of science, Associate Professor in James Madison College at Michigan State University, and Associate Dean in Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University. He lives in Lansing, Michigan.

Read more less

Since 1990, the number of mandated vaccines has increased dramatically. Today, a fully vaccinated child will have received nearly three dozen vaccinations between birth and age six. Along with the increase in number has come a growing wave of concern among parents about the unintended side effects of vaccines. In "Vaccine", Mark A. Largent explains the history of the debate and identifies issues that parents, pediatricians, politicians, and public health officials must address. Nearly 40 of American parents report that they delay or refuse a recommended vaccine for their children. Despite assurances from every mainstream scientific and medical institution, parents continue to be haunted by the question of whether vaccines cause autism. In response, health officials herald vaccines as both safe and vital to the public's health and put programs and regulations in place to encourage parents to follow the recommended vaccine schedule. For Largent, the vaccine-autism debate obscures a constellation of concerns held by many parents, including anxiety about the number of vaccines required (including some for diseases that children are unlikely ever to encounter), unhappiness about the rigorous schedule of vaccines during well-baby visits, and fear of potential side effects, some of them serious and even life-threatening. This book disentangles competing claims, opens the controversy for critical reflection, and provides recommendations for moving forward.

Read more less