Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a book that is truly terrifying some of the time, but ultimately it's marred by unsupported conjecture and scare tactics. Goliszek shows us that there is indeed a long and shameful history of medical experimentation on humans, dating as far back as medicine itself. In modern times there is still much unethical and often illegal experimentation on humans taking place by the government and corporations. And you guessed it - the human subjects are usually minorities, the handicapped, coerced military personnel, and uninformed volunteers. Strangely, these days lab animals have more rights than human subjects. Much of this book builds a deserved sense of outrage about these ongoing atrocities.
Unfortunately, the entire book doesn't hold up, becoming a repetitive tirade of unsupported opinions and scare tactics from Goliszek, attempting to force the reader's sense of outrage to the point of absurdity. A major issue is Goliszek's lack of notes and citations, regardless of a very extensive bibliography, because the reader cannot tell documented facts from the author's opinions. In the text Goliszek often adds extensive background to many tales of experimentation, sometimes down to the level of government document numbers. But strangely, in other narratives there is no information given whatsoever, so you have no way of knowing how much the story is embellished by the author. One example among many is a horror story in chapter 4 about radioactive iodine being injected into healthy infants, with no times, locations, or names given.
Meanwhile, conjecture and opinionating sinks much of the book. For example, in chapter 3 Goliszek brands Planned Parenthood as a eugenics organization, merely because the group's founder was involved in that movement almost a century ago. In chapter 5 the testimony of people subjected to unethical medical experiments is given verbatim, as if this were adequate documentation of atrocities, though there is no evidence that the people are telling the whole truth, and at least one shows signs of inaccurate repressed memory syndrome. Chapter 8 presents a parade of conspiracy theories about the origins of AIDS that leads nowhere. Goliszek's book is a potential powerhouse, and some of it has the desired effect, but overall his motives become very questionable. Public education or scare tactics? [~doomsdayer520~]
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