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More copies of this ISBNeBook editionsNormal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry's Quest to Manipulate Heightby Susan Cohen
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A fascinating story of medical experimentation, parental love, and the extreme measures taken to make children fit within ?the norm.? Most people rarely think about their height beyond a little wishing and hoping. But for the parents of children who are ridiculed by their peers for being extraordinarily tall or extraordinarily short, height can cause great anguish. For decades, the medical establishment has responded to these worries by prescribing controversial treatments and therapies for children who fall outside of the ?normal? height range. While some have benefited, many have suffered from devastating side effects. In this riveting book, Susan Cohen and Christine Cosgrove provide a voice for the parents, doctors, scientists, and pharmaceutical companies involved in these experimental treatments. They also tell the story of the boys and girls themselves, many of them now grown, who were subjected to a wide range of non-FDA-approved medical procedures. These treatments? which consisted of extreme doses of estrogen, pituitary glands taken from both animals and human cadavers, and testosterone injections?often had disastrous side effects. Who is to say how tall is too tall, and how short is too short? For many of the individuals represented in this book, the answers have been clear?and they are grateful to the medical industry for improving upon nature. For others, left in the wake of this same science, the answers are fueled by tragic regret. The authors explore the dueling motives behind these procedures? with parents desperate to help their children ?fit in? and doctors and scientists hungry for scientific breakthroughs. Combining extensive research and in-depth interviews, Normal at Any Cost is the first book to place a human face on this complex and ethically charged medical history. Review:"Science journalist Cohen and Cosgrove, a WebMD contributor, offer an emotionally charged indictment of the medical-pharmaceutical complex centered on efforts to control height (making boys taller, girls shorter) in otherwise normal, healthy children. Reviewing five decades of such efforts, such as in the 1950s with the administration of estrogen to stunt tall girls' growth, the authors take to task pediatric endocrinologists, drug companies and the parents who bring their children for treatment. This history is meant as a cautionary tale, and Cohen and Cosgrove raise all the right questions: when do we cross the line from treating disease to 'satisfying desires for perfection'? can the exorbitant cost of growth hormone therapy be justified in an otherwise inadequate health system? do drug companies distort the practice of medicine? does government adequately protect the public? Because it can take decades for the ill effects of treatment to emerge, this account can only raise questions about possible threats from current practices. Fortunately, the treatments much of the book is devoted to are no longer in use." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Synopsis:Cohen and Cosgrove present a fascinating story of medical experimentation, parental love, and the extreme measures taken to make children fit within the normal height range.
About the AuthorA recipient of the Science in Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers, SUSAN COHEN has written extensively on bioethical issues. CHRISTINE COSGROVE is a medical journalist whose work has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines around the country. A frequent contributor to WebMD, she was treated with DES (a growth-stunting drug) as a child and now stands five feet eleven inches. Table of ContentsNormal At Any Cost Introduction Part 1. drug turns young amazons into beauties Chapter 1. "Tallness Can Be a Real Handicap for a Girl" Chapter 2. Playing God with Hormones Chapter 3. Two Girls, Two Continents Part 2. helping the dwarfed children Chapter 4. "A Gland Lost Is a Gland Wasted" Chapter 5. "No Patient Seems to Have Caught Anything" Chapter 6. "Soon. Very Soon. . ." Part 3. to market, to market. . . Chapter 7. "Only Genentech Is Not in Mourning" Chapter 8. Dear Parent. . . Chapter 9. "Never Before in the History of Medicine" Part 4. reckonings Chapter 10. Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence Chapter 11. Friendly Fire Part 5. $35,000 an inch—and growing Chapter 12. A Disease Is Born Chapter 13. Now What? Conclusion: A New Normal? Epilogue Acknowledgments Glossary Notes Index What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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