Author: Art Diamond

(p. 12) The early chapters of “The Deep Places” unfold like the first act of a horror movie. Feeling the pull of home and burned out by life on Capitol Hill, Ross Douthat (a New York Times columnist) and his wife buy a 1790s farmhouse on three acres of Connecticut pasture.

. . .

Something is lurking in those woods. Back in D.C., Douthat has a swollen lymph node, a stiff neck and strange vibrations in his head and mouth. The urgent care doctor he sees first diagnoses him with a harmless boil. A few weeks later, he is in an emergency room at dawn with an alarming full-body shutdown, “as if someone had twisted dials randomly in all my systems.” The E.R. doctor suggests stress as the culprit — as do, in subsequent visits, an internist, neurologist, rheumatologist and gastroenterologist. A psychiatrist, his 11th doctor in 10 weeks, disagrees.

Only after Douthat completes his move north to Connecticut, namesake of Lyme disease, does it seem obvious to local doctors that he is suffering from something tick-borne.

. . .

He makes his case that tick-borne disease needs more research and its sufferers deserve more respect.

The trouble is that Douthat also wants to present his reckless journey as a road map. His revelation: “Given a stockpile of antibiotics, the array of over-the-counter medications available on Amazon and crowdsourced data from hundreds and thousands of Lyme sufferers sharing their experiences online, I could effectively become my own doctor, mixing and matching to gauge my body’s reaction to different combinations, like a Lyme researcher working on a study with a sample size, an ‘N,’ of only 1.”

This self-doctoring, he adds, “was in its own way intensely empirical and materially grounded — the most empirical work, in fact, that I have ever attempted in my life.” (Comparing this approach to Khakpour’s introspective memoir, I kept thinking of the couples-therapy trope that women prefer to talk through their problems while men leap to solve them.)

. . .

A subsequent bout of undiagnosed Covid-19, and scientists’ stumbles as they’ve worked to understand the new virus, have only hardened Douthat’s distrust of institutions like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. “From the beginning of the pandemic to its still unfinished end,” he writes, “there were weirdos on the internet who were more reliable guides to what was happening, what was possible, and what should actually be done than Anthony Fauci or any other official information source.”

For the full review, see:

Sara Austin. “Darkness Invisible.” The New York Times Book Review (Sunday, November 28, 2021): 12.

(Note: ellipses, added; italics, in original.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the Updated Oct. 30, 2021, and has the title “A Transporting and Cozy Biography of a Pottery Pioneer.”)

The book under review is:

Douthat, Ross. The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery. New York: Convergent Books, 2021.

(p. A15) Dr. Offit acknowledges the limits of regulatory fixes, noting that, while regulatory guidelines are important, “unanticipated tragedies are unpreventable, no matter how many regulations, training programs, fines, and penalties are put in place.” He contrasts the tragic death in 1999 of 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger in an early gene-therapy study—aimed at remediating a rare enzyme deficiency—with the triumphant experience of Emily Whitehead, a girl with leukemia treated 11 years later at the same university with genetically manipulated T-cells. Gelsinger’s death has been ascribed to protocol deficiencies, conflicts of interest and inadequate regulation, but “a closer look,” Dr. Offit writes, “shows that the only difference between the outcomes of Emily Whitehead and Jesse Gelsinger were luck and timing.” The specific supportive approach used by Whitehead’s doctors to address a life-threatening complication of her T-cell infusion stemmed directly from the lessons learned during Gelsinger’s ordeal. We recognize successes, Dr. Offit laments, but “never the failures that made those successes possible.”

One anxiety suffusing every page of “You Bet Your Life” is what to make of the Covid-19 vaccines. Dr. Offit, a member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee, has been described in The Wall Street Journal as “an outspoken advocate of the science and value of vaccinations,” including the Covid-19 vaccine. He has described its clinical-trial data as “enormously reassuring” and has seen little evidence of “a very rare, serious side effect that would be something that would cause a long term problem.” Yet his review of the history of vaccination and of its complexities evokes surprising empathy for the vaccine-hesitant. He recounts the early days of the Salk polio vaccine, which saved lives yet also tragically transmitted the disease to some patients when the product was inadequately prepared by one of its manufacturers. He notes that “the first vaccines aren’t always the best, safest, and last” and regrets the “disturbing show of hubris” by the Covid vaccine developers.

Ultimately, Dr. Offit emphasizes, we need to come to terms with the fact that all medical technologies carry risk—as does the decision not to avail oneself of them. “A choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice,” Dr. Offit notes. Either way, he says, “you’re gambling”—so “choose the lesser risk.”

For the full review, see:

David A. Shaywitz. “BOOKSHELF; The Dangers Of Finding a Cure.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2021): A15.

(Note: the online version of the review has the date November 8, 2021, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; ‘You Bet Your Life’ Review: The Dangers of Finding a Cure.”)

The book under review is:

Offit, Paul A. You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation. New York: Basic Books, 2021.