Kempner tells a convoluted story with sympathy and respect, adding her personal experience to solid research.
A compelling account of the promise of psychedelic drugs to treat crushing pain.
Kempner, a sociology professor at Rutgers University, has a special interest in chronic migraine, so when she heard of an underground network that was working toward effective treatment options to treat a related disease, cluster headache, she began to investigate. This led her to Clusterbusters, a support group that advocates and organizes the use of psychedelic drugs, especially mushrooms, that give relief to many. However, this is not a stereotypical tale of zoned-out acid trips of New Age wandering. Kempner notes that most of the people in the group “would blend in at any suburban mall. There’s not a hint of spirituality to be found….Not a single namaste.” The author traces how the group began and progressed, held together by online communication but also via annual in-person conventions. Even though “magic mushrooms” are illegal, the authorities often look the other way. Most Clusterbusters members take only small, calibrated amounts, and the success rate has been encouraging. A near-universal complaint is a lack of help with chronic migraine from conventional medical professionals, and the pharmaceutical companies show little interest in undertaking research into the area. The Clusterbusters developed their own protocol to standardize doses and treatment methods, but they realized that more in-depth research is needed. Kempner explains how they garnered support for clinical tests from academics at Harvard and Yale, but legalization of therapeutic psychedelic drugs is a long way off. She concludes: “The path to heaven from hell starts with hope….Pain isolates, but knowing you are not alone can make all the difference.”
Kempner tells a convoluted story with sympathy and respect, adding her personal experience to solid research.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780306828942
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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