BSE Books

This is a very well researched and prepared book on the neurodegenerative conditions known as prion diseases or TSEs. It focuses on a particular aspect, the metal binding capacity of the protein at the heart of these diseases, the prion protein. As such this finding links the research to the many other neurodegenerative diseases that have also been linked to metals. These diseases include Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease. This is brought out in the book. David Brown had been at the forefront of this kind of research for many years and his sections of the book are clearly the best. Contributions from other authors are also present and good. Unlike other books on this subject, this one is refreshingly unbiased and remains an up-to-date account of the field. It is very molecular which makes it more like "hard science" too many of these books are filled with hundred of pages of brain sections or descriptions of how the researchers extrapolate from dead mice to human disease. If you want an introduction to the prion diseases as a student or are a professional looking for a readable and relevant update - this is the book for you!!
PS: By the way my copy is a hardback!!!

Provides the history and the facts about many of the overblown crises scaring the public and causing tremendous wasts

This book describes and documents (thoroughly) a series of historically recent hysteria incidents in Britain and America, usually caused by "real" events which were immediately blown up out of all proportion to the event itself by people with their own agendas, some in private life, including academia, and some in government, by using incomplete or inaccurate data. The authors posit a pattern that seems to exist for each "scare" that determines the severity of the political and economic consequences. They include, as the title shows, "BSE to Global Warming" as well as many others, such as "satanic child abuse", "salmonella in eggs" etc. This book is well worth reading, regardless of the reader's position on the political spectrum.

This book is very revealing.

Not just about us as a species and how we tend to except negative over positive....but about how the media and government work to take advantage of that fact. ...and of course how this all results in bad policy decisions.

The chapter on global warming is most revealing of all. Al Gore fans stay away unless you are prepared to be disillusioned with him.

Relevant in that all governments are incompetant and inefficient, but the book is England based. Government names and titles are probably wasted on most Americans and that hurts your ability to follow much of the book. I had hoped for something a little closer to home; the global warming issue is closer due to heavy US involvement, but that's less than a quarter of the book. Well researched and documented. Presents the "other side" of many issues that the stampede misses. A very slow read.

"Scared to Death" does a very good job of describing past scares: Salmonella in eggs, Listeria in cheese, Mad Cow Disease, Dioxins in poultry feed, anti-malarial DDT, SARS and bird flu, The Milennium Bug, Ritualized Child Abuse, Auto Speed Limits, Lead in gasoline, Passive Smoking, organophosphorus in pesticides, and The Great Asbestos Scam. This book also summarizes the misinformation and misconceptions surrounding the Global Warming Scare and explains why the Kyoto Protocol is a futile and economically disastrous policy.

This book is a good antidote to the Western fantasy that all Tibetans are enlightened beings and the dream that the Tibetan monastery is a utopia. Lobsang Gyatso is a monk who comes through the ranks (rather than an incarnation); the tale of his mischievous childhood, struggles to study, and life in exile let the reader see how much work a life dedicated to religious practice is. Iconoclastic, frank, and sometimes hilarious, Lobsang Gyatso comes across as a practical and devoted monk. And despite the fact that readers are told early on that Lobsang Gyatso was murdered in 1997, the editor's account of his brutal killing comes as a shock, as it adds another painful story to the debate over the status of Dorje Shugden.

I was ver disappointed with this, I was more expecting something that told more about all the how's, why's and where's...... This was more along the lines of statistics, surprising as they were... I'ts just I wanted more on where they have linked this to come from, our water? the use of antibiotics? pesticides????? All very big but yet simple questions I do still have. I have also wondered more about statistics as far as projected outlook, where do they think this disease will be in say 50 years?