"In this impressively reported expos', Wired magazine contributing editor Carney raises disturbing questions about egg and organ donation, medical-school skeletons (some come from robbed graves), and adoption (some babies are stolen from their birth parents). Technically, organs may be donated, but big money is involved in transplanting them. Hospitals get $67,500 to harvest a kidney, and placing it into a recipient costs $259,000. Livers go for $523,000, and intestines for $1.2 million. Not surprisingly, many patients head overseas for bargain-basement deals. Carney also wants us to reconsider how pharmaceutical companies test drugs. Just out of grad school and poor, Carney was paid $3,200 to be a guinea pig for the first-phase dosage safety trial for the erectile dysfunction drug Levitra, and wound up with a splitting headache. Carney draws some controversial conclusions, advocating transparency: Every bag of blood should include the name of the original donor, every adopted child should have full access to his personal history, and every transplant recipient should know who gave him an organ. Like a top trial attorney, Carney makes his case convincingly." (Booklist) Check Our Catalog
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