Books Showcasing the Work of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“The Danger Within Us:Â America’s Untested, Unregulated Medical Device Industry and One Man’s Battle to Survive It”
by Jeanne Lenzer
Did you know…Medical interventions have become the third leading cause of death in America? An estimated 10 percent of Americans are implanted with medical devices — like pacemakers, artificial hips, cardiac stents, etc. The overwhelming majority of high-risk implanted devices have never undergone a single clinical trial. In THE DANGER WITHIN US, award-winning journalist Jeanne Lenzer brings these horrifying statistics to life through the story of one working class man who, after his “cure” nearly kills him, ends up in a battle for justice against the medical establishment.
Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman client interviewed and her lawsuit cited
“Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science”
by Carey Gillam
It’s the herbicide on our dinner plates, a chemical so pervasive it’s in the air we breathe, our water, our soil, and even found increasingly in our own bodies. Known as Monsanto’s Roundup by consumers, and as glyphosate by scientists, the world’s most popular weed killer is used everywhere from backyard gardens to golf courses to millions of acres of farmland. For decades it’s been touted as safe enough to drink, but a growing body of evidence indicates just the opposite, with research tying the chemical to cancers and a host of other health threats. Written by veteran journalist Carey Gillam. Whitewash is more than an exposé about the hazards of one chemical or even the influence of one company. It’s a story of power, politics, and the deadly consequences of putting corporate interests ahead of public safety.
Read Review | Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman client interviewed, her lawsuit cited, as well as other Baum Hedlund litigation
“Eat, Drink, and Be Wary: How Unsafe Is Our Food?”
by Charles M. Duncan
Veteran journalist Duncan demonstrates that fears about food safety in the U.S. are not unfounded. Bit by bit, he examines “our enormous food safety problems,” the reasons why the government has failed to protect consumers, and the consequences of such lax oversight.
According to Duncan, the American government drags its feet and has kept secret public information about enforcement, closures, and seizures of food processors, protecting big businesses at the public’s expense. Though not the most optimistic—or appetizing—volume on modern-day food production, Duncan’s work is comprehensive and readers concerned with the safety and reliability of their foods will appreciate his efforts.
Read Review | Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman mentioned and web page, “BPA: What, When, Where, How, Why,” cited
“Seconds to Disaster”
by Glenn Meade and Ray Ronan
Much of the time air crashes are a confluence of events—a cascade of bad luck, bad decisions, inappropriate airline company policy, the failure of aviation regulators, and sometimes insufficient training, or various combinations of all five. Seconds to Disaster demonstrates that part of that bad luck is often aided by the airline industry’s own endless and aggressive pursuit of bottom-line profit which contributes to a creeping erosion of safety standards and puts both passenger and crew lives at serious risk.
Read Review | Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman attorney quoted
“Pharmageddon”
by Dr. David Healy
Healy, who was the first to draw attention to the now well-publicized suicide-inducing side effects of many antidepressants, attributes our current state of affairs to three key factors: product rather than process patents on drugs, the classification of certain drugs as prescription-only, and industry-controlled drug trials. These developments have tied the survival of pharmaceutical companies to the development of blockbuster drugs, so that they must overhype benefits and deny real hazards.
Read review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman Consultant
“White Coat, Black Hat”
by Carl Elliott
Author Elliott reports that the culture of deception within the medical community has become pervasive – driven by profit-maximizing drug companies. He buttresses that conclusion with innumerable vignettes of how they have withheld negative outcomes information about their products, while creating slanted supportive reports in ghost-written medical journal articles, CME presentations, and various forums for both physicians and the public.
Read Review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“Kids Caught in the Psychiatric Maelstrom”
by Elizabeth E. Root, MSW, MS Ed
Writing for parents and caregivers, Root, a retired clinical social worker, criticizes treatment practices of children with psychiatric conditions and addresses the issue of excessive prescribing of medications. Noting the supposed increase in mental illness in children, she asks whether they are really mentally ill and whether the care provided to them is really helpful. She discusses medical and psychosocial treatment models and how they influence a therapist’s attitude toward a patient; the history of ADHD, neurobiological theories, and critiques of them; myths about bipolar disorder; the increase in psychopharmacology, the pharmaceutical industry, types of drugs, and their safety; screening of children and the lack of an objective screening method; and non-drug alternative solutions.
Read review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman Consultant
“Brave New World of Health”
by Belinda Bennett et al.
This book argues that the foundational terms and concepts, which form the basic building blocks of dialogue about health, are now in flux. While the forces in play differ, and the pace of change is varied, there is now a ‘brave new world’ of health which characterizes policy debate about health (and illness or disability).
Read review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“Side Effects”
by Alison Bass
Side Effects tells the tale of a gutsy assistant attorney general who, along with an unlikely whistle-blower at an Ivy League university, uncovered evidence of deception behind one of the most successful drug campaigns in history. Paxil was the world’s bestselling antidepressant in 2002. Pediatric prescriptions soared, even though there was no proof that the drug performed any better than sugar pills in treating children and adolescents, and the real risks the drugs posed were withheld from the public.
The New York State Attorney General’s office brought an unprecedented lawsuit against giant manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, for consumer fraud. The successful suit launched a tidal wave of protest that changed the way drugs are tested, sold, and marketed in this country.
Read Review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“Mania” by
Dr. David Healy
Mania describes the short history of bipolar disorder and how the perception of illness changes over time, recounting the changing definitions of mania throughout centuries. It also explores the effects of growing public awareness of the disease on culture and society, and examines the rise of psychotropic treatments and pharmacological marketing.
Read Review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients”
by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
Selling Sickness reveals how widening the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits, in turn threatening to bankrupt health-care systems all over the world. As more and more of ordinary life becomes medicalised, the industry moves ever closer to Gadsden’s dream: “selling to everyone.”
Read Review | Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman attorney quoted
“Medicines Out of Control? Antidepressants and the Conspiracy of Goodwill”
by Charles Medawar & Anita Hardon
Medicines Out of Control focuses on a drug crisis that is still in the making: the control and consumption of mood-regulating drugs, such as Prozac and other antidepressants and a much wider problem: continuing human dependence on corporate and professional power.
Read Review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“Antidepresseurs La Grande Intoxication, Ce Que 5 Millions de Patients Ne Savent Pas Encore”
by Guy Hugnet
Antidepressants the great intoxication goes into the hidden side of antidepressant work and what the manufacturers, because of trade issues, do not say: unpublished documents in France, often secret, from pharmaceutical companies ignore the public interest and most physicians opinions.
Read Review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds”
by Gary M. Pomerantz
In this gripping and inspiring story, Gary M. Pomerantz brings readers deep inside the hearts and minds of twenty-nine people whose fates take a dramatic turn when their plane crashes in a west Georgia hayfield. You will be amazed by how they react in those fateful moments, and by their remarkable personal journeys in the days and months that follow.
Read Review | Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman attorney quoted
“The Secret Life of Bill Clinton”
by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
These days, it seems like everyone’s a Friend of Bill–Clinton’s buddies from Arkansas are turning up in powerful White House positions faster than you can say “Whitewater.” But make no mistake, British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is no F.O.B.: in the course of The Secret Life of Bill Clinton’s 350-plus pages, he manages to connect the president to everything from 1997’s Oklahoma City bombing to Arkansas’s drug underworld to the mysterious death of White House aide and longtime Clinton friend Vince Foster, and, of course, to Paula Jones.
Read Review | Acknowledgement of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman
“Reckless Disregard”
by James S. Kunen
In a shocking exposĂ© of the nation’s school buses, Kunen (The Strawberry Statement) focuses on the 1988 head-on collision of a Kentucky school bus and a pickup truck driven by an intoxicated motorist, which killed 24 children and three adults aboard the bus.
Kunen had the cooperation of Janey and Larry Fair, whose daughter Shannon was among the victims. The Fairs and another victim’s parents, the Nunnallees (whom he also interviewed) initially rejected a settlement offer from Ford, maker of the bus. Instead, the couples pressed the corporation for safety improvements.
Read Review | Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman attorney quoted