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Book Cover
Book
Author Shapo, Marshall S., 1936-

Title Experimenting with the consumer : the mass testing of risky products on the American public / Marshall S. Shapo
Published Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 2009

Copies

Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  KN 39.P6 Sha/Ewt  AVAILABLE
Description xi, 288 pages ; 25 cm
Contents Experimentation : a survey at trench level -- HIV/AIDS drugs : speeding up science under political pressure -- Breast implants : a parable of law's response to improvements on nature -- Treating thyself with drugs - for men only : the saga of Viagra -- Estrogens : a gathering of data, a gathering storm -- Estrogens - the storm breaks : a struggle of medicine, law, and politics -- Experiments at the billionth level : nanotechnology
Summary From the Publisher: 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, C60 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 to 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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [231]-278) and index
Subject Breast implants -- Complications.
Causation.
Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation.
Human experimentation in medicine -- Law and legislation -- United States.
Products liability -- Breast implants.
Products liability -- Drugs.
Products liability -- United States.
Technological innovations -- Law and legislation -- United States.
LC no. 2008033664
ISBN 0313365288 (hbk. : alk. paper)
9780313365287 (hbk. : alk. paper)