Medicine's Deadly Dust: A Surgeon's Wake-Up Call to Society - Hardcover

Edlich, Richard F.; Woods, Julia A.; Cox, Mary Jude

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0918339456 ISBN 13: 9780918339454

Publisher: Vandamere Pr, 1997

Synopsis

Book by Edlich, Richard F., Woods, Julia A., Cox, Mary Jude

About this title

From Library Journal:

The "deadly dust" here is the cornstarch used to make latex examination and surgical gloves easier to slip on. This substance causes two problems, the first caused by the cornstarch (and similar substances, such as talc, used in other times and places), the second by latex proteins from the gloves themselves, which are spread by the cornstarch particles and which are a potent allergen in some people. This is indeed an emerging medical issue, fueled by the adoption of "universal precautions" in the 1980s as protection against bloodborne infections such as HIV. Suddenly, everyone in a healthcare setting is wearing latex gloves, and many people develop sensitivity to the latex. This book, alas, takes an interesting and important problem and buries it in misdirection and turgid prose. The author's voice, meant to be authoritative (he is professor of plastic surgery at the University of Virginia), is at once hectoring and condescending. Those who agree with him are deified, those who disagree branded conspiratorial. Worse, the notes and documentation (especially for a physician who prides himself as a scientist) are so scanty as to raise immediate suspicions and make it impossible to verify his claim that cornstarch-borne latex allergy is a multibillion dollar health problem caused by greedy corporations. Not recommended.?Mark L. Shelton, Univ. of Massachuettes Medical Ctr., Worcester
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vandamere Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0918339456
• ISBN 13: 9780918339454
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 236