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You bet your life : from blood transfusions to mass vaccination, the long and risky history of medical innovations / by Offit, Paul A.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Four months into the coronavirus pandemic, as the death count surged, the FDA made a risky decision: it approved an anti-malarial drug as a treatment for coronavirus, despite limited data on its efficacy or side effects. A month later, the FDA withdrew its recommendation, but by then, the damage had been done. The drug was ineffective and sometimes even lethal. The mistake was hardly a one-off. As virologist Paul. A. Offit shows in You Bet Your Life, from antibiotics and vaccines to x-rays and genetic engineering, risk, and our understanding of it, have shaped the course of modern medicine, paving the way for its greatest triumphs and tragedies. By telling the stories of the events--and of the frequent hypocrisy and cravenness of the characters at their center--Offit shows how risk, and failure, have driven innovation, and importantly, how by examining our mistakes we can make better medical predictions and decisions going forward. From the outlandish origins of blood transfusions, which began with humans receiving blood for barnyard animals, to the the disastrous debut of the first polio vaccine, and the backstabbing and infighting that surrounded early gene therapies, he captures the drama that surrounds medical research, the way ego and laziness can collide with science, and ultimately how those factors should inform what we choose to do and have done to us in the clinic. The history is fascinating in its own right, but the worldwide rush to create a coronavirus vaccine only makes learning from the lessons of history essential. Weighing the uncertainties of a treatment against its potential benefits is one of medicine's greatest ethical dilemmas, and Offit examines it from every angle. He explores not just how patients and their families respond to risk but how everyone from physicians and researchers to universities and regulators do, too, and how that ultimately determines what treatments are put forward. Not everyone has the same goal. And too often the patient's health is secondary. But as Offit shows, we can all minimize risk and failure by learning how to recognize conflicts of interest, to draw inferences from animal models, and to evaluate risk, even when we have limited data. Along the way, Offit asks who should decide what risks are acceptable, and who should pay when the results are fatal. In the end, however, Offit argues that we are gambling whatever we do--and that we need to take that seriously, whether we pursue a treatment or decide to do nothing at all. The answers aren't simple, and the outcomes are life or death. Examining these questions with the compassion of a pediatrician and the rigor of a scientist, Offit reminds us that we all have a role to play in ensuring that medicine upholds its very first principle: to do no harm"--
Subjects: Medical ethics.; Risk assessment.; Pharmacology, Experimental.; Drugs;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Small Ceremonies A Novel [electronic resource] : by Edwards, Kyle.aut; CloudLibrary;
Part coming-of-age novel, part searing examination of a community finding itself, Small Ceremonies is a tantalizing and heartbreaking debut. “I fear for our friendship, for the day it will end, wondering when that day will be . . .” Tomahawk Shields (a.k.a. Tommy) and Clinton Whiteway are on the cusp of adulthood, imagining a future rife with possibility and greatness. The two friends play for their high school’s poor-performing hockey team, the Tigers, who learn at the start of the new season that the league wants them out. Their annual goal is now more important than ever: to win their first game in years and break the curse. As we follow these two Indigenous boys over the course of a year, we are given a panoptic view of Tommy and Clinton’s Winnipeg, where a university student with grand ambitions chooses to bottle her anger when confronted with numerous micro- (and not so micro-) aggressions; an ex-convict must choose between protecting or exploiting his younger brother as he’s dragged deeper into the city’s criminal underbelly; a lonely rink attendant is haunted by the memory of a past lover and contemplates rekindling this old flame; and an aspiring journalist does everything she can to uncover why the league is threatening to remove the Tigers. These are a sampling of the chorus of voices that depicts a community filled with individuals searching for purpose, leading them all to one fateful and tragic night. Ferociously piercing the heart of an Indigenous city, Kyle Edwards's sparkling debut is a heartbreaking yet humour-flecked portrayal of navigating identity and place, trauma and recovery, and growing up in a land that doesn't love you.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Coming of Age; Native American & Aboriginal;
© 2025., McClelland & Stewart,
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A living remedy : a memoir / by Chung, Nicole,author.;
"From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of class, inequality, and grief--a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost. In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you'd hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them. When Nicole Chung graduated from high school, she couldn't hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found a sense of community she had always craved as an Asian American adoptee--and a path to the life she'd long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in--where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations--looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets. When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief as well as rage, knowing that years of financial instability and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his premature death. And then the unthinkable happens--less than a year later, her beloved mother is diagnosed with cancer, and the physical distance between them becomes insurmountable as COVID descends upon the world. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another--and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and tragic inequalities in American society"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Chung, Nicole.; Adoptees; Adoptive parents; Equality; Grief; Income distribution; Interracial adoption;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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From my mother's back : a journey from Kenya to Canada / by Wane, Njoki Nathani,author.;
"In this warm and honest memoir, celebrated academic Njoki Wane shares her journey from her parents' small coffee farm in Kenya, where she helped her mother in the fields as a child, to her current work as a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Moving smoothly between time and place, Wane uses her past to illuminate her present. The childhood confusion caused by nuns at her boarding school dismissing her proper name and demanding she give them a Christian first name she did not possess, which resulted in many unexpected consequences, leads deftly to her requirement as a professor that her students, and all her colleagues, learn to use and correctly pronounce her first name of Njoki. In similar ways, Wane uses other memories, painful and tender, to show how her early lessons and the support given by her family allowed her to succeed as a woman of colour in the academy and to later lift up her students facing their own difficult journeys. Yet Wane does not gloss over her own growing pains as a young woman, and as an established professor she still questions whether or not her attachment to Western conveniences is wise. For, in the end, Wane never forgets that her story started with the feeling of safety and the clear field of view she received as a child carried on her mother's back."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Wane, Njoki Nathani.; College teachers; Kenyans; Women immigrants;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Every body [videorecording] / by Cohen, Julie,film director.; Wall, Sean Safia,on-screen participant.; Weigel, Alicia Roth,on-screen participant.; Gallo, River,on-screen participant.; Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (Firm),publisher.;
Sean Safia Wall, Alicia Roth Weigel, River Gallo.Every Body tells the stories of three intersex individuals who have moved from childhoods marked by shame, secrecy, and non-consensual surgeries to thriving adulthoods. Actor and screenwriter River Gallo (they/them), political consultant Alicia Roth Weigel (she/they), and Ph.D. student Sean Saifa Wall (he/him) are now leaders in a fast-growing global movement advocating for a greater understanding of the intersex community and an end to unnecessary surgeries. Woven into the story is a stranger-than-fiction case of medical abuse, featuring exclusive footage from the NBC News archives, which helps explain the modern-day treatment of intersex people.Canadian Home Video Rating: 14A.MPAA rating: R, for some language and graphic nude images.Subtitled for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH).DVD ; wide screen presentation ; Dolby Digital 5.1.
Subjects: Video recordings for the hearing impaired.; Biographical films.; Documentary films.; Educational films.; Nonfiction films.; Personal narratives.; Intersex people.; Identity (Philosophical concept); Intersexuality.; Self-acceptance.;
For private home use only.
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Fangirl / by Rowell, Rainbow,author.;
Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She's horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life. Without Wren Cath is completely on her own and totally outside her comfort zone. She's got a surly room-mate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words ... And she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone. Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realizing that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible ...
Subjects: Young adult fiction.; Authorship; Groupies; Interpersonal relations; Twins;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The experiment / by Stead, Rebecca.;
Nathan never understood what was "fun" about secrets, probably because he's always had to keep a very big one. Although he appears to be a typical sixth-grader (with parents, homework and a best friend, Victor), Nathan learned at an early age that his family is from another planet. Now, their time on Earth may be coming to an end. Nathan, his parents and nine other families are part of an experiment that suddenly seems to be going wrong. Some of the experimenters, including Nathan's first crush, Izzy, are disappearing without a word. After his family is called back to the mothership, Nathan begins to question everything he's been taught to believe about who he is and why he's on Earth. The Experiment is a fast-paced coming-of-age novel that asks universal questions about how we figure out who we want to be, and whether it's ever too late to change.
Subjects: Science fiction.; Bildungsromans.; Extraterrestrial beings; Experiments; Identity (Psychology); Secrecy; Families; Missing persons;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Lucid dying : the new science revolutionizing how we understand life and death / by Parnia, Sam,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."A groundbreaking look at what happens to us when we die, based on the largest-ever research study run on recalled experiences of death. Today, for the first time in history, the scientific exploration of death and what happens when we die is real, active and ongoing. Contrary to popular perceptions, this subject is no longer the remit of philosophy, religion, or personal opinion. Truly remarkable scientific discoveries that will fundamentally affect everyone's lives now and in the future are taking place, yet very few people are aware of them. Most people -- including scientists and doctors-maintain strong beliefs about death and its experience. Those beliefs are rooted in traditional, and often cultural, notions of death. But what if all that we have come to believe about death is fundamentally wrong? What if the paradigm we have been operating within no longer exists? What if death is not the end we thought? Lucid Dying is the first book to share that science. Presenting data derived from multiple groundbreaking studies, Dr. Parnia shows that the entity we refer to as consciousness -- our Self -- does not seem to become annihilated when we die. In fact, during death, our consciousness vastly expands and leads to a vivid experience that follows a very specific narrative arc. These studies support that there really is a universal experience of death that is meaningful, transcendent, positive, and transformative -- not hallucinatory, delusional, or illusory as previously imagined. In his latest book, Dr. Parnia weaves empirical research with gripping stories to show us the truth of how death is not the end we all thought and how anyone can harness the newfound wisdom to lead deeper, more intentional lives."--
Subjects: Death (Biology); Death; Death.; Future life.; Near-death experiences.; Thanatology.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Brother & sister / by Keaton, Diane,author.;
When they were children in the suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1950s, Diane Keaton and her younger brother, Randy, were best friends and companions: they shared stories at night in their bunk beds; they swam, laughed, dressed up for Halloween. Their mother captured their American-dream childhoods in her diaries, and on camera. But as they grew up, Randy became troubled, then reclusive. By the time he reached adulthood, he was divorced, an alcoholic, a man who couldn't hold on to full-time work-- his life a world away from his sister's, and from the rest of their family. Now Diane is delving into the nuances of their shared, and separate, pasts to confront the difficult question of why and how Randy ended up living his life on "the other side of normal." In beautiful and fearless prose that's intertwined with photographs, journal entries, letters, and poetry-- many of them Randy's own writing and art-- this insightful memoir contemplates the inner workings of a family, the ties that hold it together, and the special bond between siblings even when they are pulled far apart. Here is a story about love and responsibility: about how, when we choose to reach out to the people we feel closest to-- in moments of difficulty and loss-- surprising things can happen. A story with universal echoes, Brother & Sister speaks across generations to families whose lives have been touched by the fragility and "otherness" of loved ones-- and to brothers and sisters everywhere.
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Keaton, Diane; Keaton, Diane.; Motion picture actors and actresses; Brothers and sisters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers A Novel [electronic resource] : by Chang, Abraham.aut; Wong, Eunice.nrt; cloudLibrary;
“Abraham Chang’s novel, packed with pop culture, is wonderfully alive. This is a beautifully tender and funny examination of love, of identity, of making your way in a world that is getting bigger and smaller at the same time.” —Kevin Wilson, bestselling author of Nothing To See Here Young Wang has received plenty of wisdom from his beloved uncle: don’t take life too seriously, get out on the road when you can, and everyone gets just seven great loves in their life—so don’t blow it. This last one sticks with Young as he is an obsessive cataloger of his life: movies watched, favorite albums . . . all filtered through Chinese numerology and superstition. He finds meaning in almost everything, for which his two best friends endlessly tease him. But then, at the end of 1995, when Young is at New York University, he meets Erena. She’s brilliant, charismatic, quick-witted, and crassly funny. They fall in love and, for Young, it feels so real that he’s thrilled and terrified. As Young and Erena’s relationship blossoms, we get flashbacks to Young’s first five loves. That means Erena is “number six.” Was his uncle wrong—is she the one and only? Or are they fated for failure to make room for Young’s final, seventh love? A love letter to Western pop culture, Eastern traditions, and being a first-generation New Yorker, Abraham Chang’s dazzling debut reminds us that luck only gets us so far when it comes to matters of the heart. A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Literary; Contemporary; Asian American;
© 2024., Macmillan Audio,
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