Pandora's Lab

In this eye-opening narrative, now in paperback, mediagenic doctor and research scientist Paul Offit presents seven scientific breakthroughs that backfired--with catastrophic consequences to our health and environment.

History is filled with brilliant ideas that gave rise to disaster, and this book explores its most fascinating--and significant--missteps. Acclaimed physician and author Paul Offit offers a bouquet of riveting scientific misadventures: from opium's heyday to today's realization that it is devastatingly addictive; from the rise of trans fats to the heart disease epidemic that followed; from the cries to ban DDT to protect the environment to an epidemic-level rise in world malaria. These unwitting errors and more add up to seven lessons both cautionary and profound. In this riveting book, Offit uses these lessons to investigate how we can tell sin from science, using some of today's most controversial creations--e-cigarettes,GMOs, drug treatments for ADHD as case studies. For every "aha!" moment that should have been an "oh no," Pandora's Lab is an engrossing account of how science has been misused--and how we can learn to use its power for good.