The Pursuit of Perfection: The Promise and Perils of Medical Enchancement (Vintage) - Softcover

Rothman, Sheila; Rothman, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679758356 ISBN 13: 9780679758358

Publisher: Vintage Books, 2004

Synopsis

What does it mean to live in a time when medical science can not only cure the human body but also reshape it? How should we as individuals and as a society respond to new drugs and genetic technologies? Sheila and David Rothman address these troubling questions with a singular blend of history and analysis, taking us behind the scenes to explain how scientific research, medical practice, drug company policies, and a quest for peak performance combine to exaggerate potential benefits and minimize risks. The Rothmans bring an authoritative clarity to a subject often obscured by rumor, commerce and inadequate reporting, revealing just what happens when physicians view patients unhappiness and dissatisfaction with their bodies short stature, thunder thighs, aging as though they were diseases to be treated."

About this title

Review:

"The authors shrewdly look backward at the history of medical innovation over the past century. . . Their prescription for society is wise" --The New York Times

"Is being short a medical problem that warrants treatment? What about the diminished strength that accompanies lower testosterone levels in men as they age? . . . These are among the provocative questions that . . . a pair of eminent medical historians from Columbia University thoughtfully explore in their new book." --The Washington Post

"A thoroughly documented and readable book. 'What science creates medicine rapidly dispenses, ' [the Rothmans] warn, and this uncritical acceptance by both physician and consumer is precisely the problem." --Sherwin Nuland, The New York Review of Books

"An important contribution to the debate about medical enhancement" --The New England Journal of Medicine

About the Author:

Sheila M. Rothman is Professor of Public Health at Columbia University. Her books include Living in the Shadow of Death. Her articles in the New York Review of Books and other periodicals, often cowritten with David Rothman, address human rights and medicine. She is now investigating the social and ethical implications of linking race and ethnicity to genetic disease.

David J. Rothman is Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine and History at Columbia University. His books have explored the history of prisons and mental hospitals and the impact of bioethics and law on medicine. He has recently been named president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession, funded by George Soros.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0679758356
• ISBN 13: 9780679758358
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320