You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation

One of America's top physicians traces the history of risk in medicine--with powerful lessons for today

Every medical decision--whether to have chemotherapy, an X-ray, or surgery--is a risk, no matter which way you choose. In You Bet Your Life, physician Paul A. Offit argues that, from the first blood transfusions four hundred years ago to the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine, risk has been essential to the discovery of new treatments. More importantly, understanding the risks is crucial to whether, as a society or as individuals, we accept them.

Told in Offit's vigorous and rigorous style, You Bet Your Life is an entertaining history of medicine. But it also lays bare the tortured relationships between intellectual breakthroughs, political realities, and human foibles. Our pandemic year has shown us, with its debates over lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, how easy it is to get everything wrong. You Bet Your Life is an essential read for getting the future a bit more right.

Author: Paul A. Offit
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 09/21/2021
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.03lbs
Size: 9.52h x 6.35w x 0.97d
ISBN: 9781541620391

About the Author
Paul A. Offit, MD, is the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. A professor of vaccinology and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the author of nine books, he lives in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.