★Awarded a star by Kirkus Reviews for "remarkable merit"
Preface
"Americans are ambivalent about some things, but the quality of their health care is not one of them. They want the best and are willing to support cutting-edge research with their taxes to find new effective treatments and possible cures. They always have, especially for the past half-century. Our personal experience in the biomedical research field and with community groups, health associations, patient advocacy organizations, and legislators, among others, reminds us always that there is no public appetite to see critical and exciting advances in biomedicine occur someplace else rather than in the U.S.
As it
happens, both of us also have an abiding interest in how free inquiry,
with its roots in the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution and the
Enlightenment, has improved our lives. It is our experience with the
benefits publicly funded science bestows on society and our personal
interest in the history of science and medicine that inspired us to
write this book. That plus our conviction that we are truly on the
verge of something remarkable, something that will shape the world to
come."
-- Leo Furcht MD and William Hoffman, from the Preface of The Stem Cell Dilemma.