Experimenting with the Consumer

Book flyer
MS Word
International
MS Word

Experimenting with the Consumer The Mass Testing of Risky Products on the American Public

Marshall S. Shapo

Book Code: C36528

ISBN: 0-313-36528-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-36528-7

DOI:

Praeger Publishers

Publication: 12/30/2008

List Price: $39.95 (UK Sterling Price: £22.95)

Availability: Not yet published. (Estimated publication date, 12/30/2008)

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Endorsement From Rahm Emanuel,
Member of Congress: In his compelling look at the intersection of consumerism, science and safety, Shapo provides a framework for weighing risks and benefits of new products and technologies.
Endorsement From Robert Habush,
Past President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now the American Association for Justice): As a product liability claimants' attorney for over 45 years, I find this book to be long overdue, an 'inconvenient truth,' and a masterpiece.

Description: Experimenting With The Consumer exposes the hazards of the mass-market experimentation in which every American consumer and worker is unwittingly tapped for product risk data by manufacturers, scientists, and regulators. Vioxx, Heparin, Avandia, Paxil, fen-phen, estrogens, silicone implants, pacemakers, formaldehyde in FEMA trailers, C]60 buckyballs in coatings ... the headlines are increasingly filled with hidden risks coming to light in popular products years after federal agencies approve them for the American public. Shapo shows readers how get past unreasonable trust or fear and make the best risk-management choices for themselves and their families. He walks them through what questions to ask before consenting to be in a clinical trial; how to evaluate the implied bold-print claims against the small-print disclosures in advertisements for medical products; how to uncover product and environmental risks in their homes, workplaces, supermarkets, and neighborhoods; how to assess and control product risk while maximizing consumer choice and benefit; how to pressure government to tighten consumer protection; and how to seek legal redress. Through a diverse selection of dramatic case studies, Shapo lays bare the incentives of companies and entrepreneurial scientists to fake or obscure experimental data before and after government approval; the fights between interested and disinterested scientists over data; the fights between scientists and doctors over patient rights; the campaigns of activists against government agencies to release experimental drugs; the impact of the journalistic and promotional media on public knowledge and perception of product risk; and the marketing tricks that manufacturers use to harness sexual desire to product launches and to shape the prescription choices of physicians.

Table of Contents:

INTRODUCTION
Chapter One: EXPERIMENTATION: A SURVEY AT TRENCH LEVEL
Chapter Two: HIV/AIDS DRUGS: SPEEDING UP SCIENCE, UNDER
POLITICAL PRESSURE
Chapter Three: BREAST IMPLANTS: A PARABLE OF LAWS
RESPONSE TO IMPROVEMENTS ON NATURE
Chapter Four: TREATING THYSELFFOR MEN ONLY: VIAGRA
Chapter Five: ESTROGENSA GATHERING OF DATA, A
G
ATHERING STORM
Chapter Six: ESTROGENSTHE STORM BREAKS; A STRUGGLE
OF MEDICINE, LAW, AND POLITICS
Chapter Seven: EXPERIMENTS AT THE BILLION LEVEL
:NANOTECHNOLOGY
CONCLUSION

LC Card Number: 2008033664

LCC Class: KF1296

Dewey Class: 346


All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571