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Indlæser... The Death of Innocents: A True Story of Murder, Medicine, and High-Stake Science (udgave 1998)af Richard Firstman
Work InformationThe Death of Innocents: A True Story of Murder, Medicine, and High-Stake Science af Richard Firstman
Edgar Award (258) Indlæser...
Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. A prosecutor in upstate New York investigated a family in which three children had all died of SIDS. When he brought in experts he learned that current thinking is that SIDS doesn't run in families and that this looked like murder. The father was subsequently convicted. One of the experts mentioned that a paper that's used to "prove" that SIDS is a family disease was based on a family in New York state who lost five children. He got interested in that case and found the family, along with evidence that pointed to murder, and he brought the mother to trial. Then the book switches and gets into the history of SIDS and its treatment. One doctor had a theory that apnea was the cause, which led to a whole industry of monitors for babies who seemed to have breathing problems. But his theory is based on very little evidence, including the family who had lost five children, supposedly because of apnea. The books is really about research and how we know what we know, and the unintended consequences of assumptions. It reads like a mystery written by Berton Rouche. Just fascinating. I wasn't at all bothered by the children's deaths and feel kind of odd about it – several people I told about the book were upset just hearing a brief mention of them. For me, little babies don't seem like real people, and it was so long ago. ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
Hæderspriser
Unraveling a twenty-five-year tale of multiple murder and medical deception,The Death of Innocentsis a work of first-rate journalism told with the compelling narrative drive of a mystery novel. More than just a true-crime story, it is the stunning expose of spurious science that sent medical researchers in the wrong direction--and nearly allowed a murderer to go unpunished. On July 28, 1971, a two-and-a-half-month-old baby named Noah Hoyt died in his trailer home in a rural hamlet of upstate New York. He was the fifth child of Waneta and Tim Hoyt to die suddenly in the space of seven years. People certainly talked, but Waneta spoke vaguely of "crib death," and over time the talk faded. Nearly two decades later a district attorney in Syracuse, New York, was alerted to a landmark paper in the literature on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome--SIDS--that had been published in a prestigious medical journal back in 1972. Written by a prominent researcher at a Syracuse medical center, the article described a family in which five children had died suddenly without explanation. The D.A. was convinced that something about this account was very wrong. An intensive quest by a team of investigators came to a climax in the spring of 1995, in a dramatic multiple-murder trial that made headlines nationwide. But this book is not only a vivid account of infanticide revealed; it is also a riveting medical detective story. That journal article had legitimized the deaths of the last two babies by theorizing a cause for the mystery of SIDS, suggesting it could be predicted and prevented, and fostering the presumption that SIDS runs in families. More than two decades of multimillion-dollar studies have failed to confirm any of these widely accepted premises. How all this happened--could have happened--is a compelling story of high-stakes medical research in action. And the enigma of familial SIDS has given rise to a special and terrible irony. There is today a maxim in forensic pathology: One unexplained infant death in a family is SIDS. Two is very suspicious. Three is homicide. No library descriptions found. |
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This book will make you think about the ethics of science, the pros and cons of advocacy groups and corporate support, the subtlety of translating science for the courtroom, and a myriad of other important social issues and how they interact.
Recommended for all citizens. ( )