5 comments about Curing the Incurable.

1. Jacque Rigg dared to do what the medical establishment tells the patient is iether incorrect or ineffected... taking control of your own health and denying the establishment 16K a year to pay for harmful pharmacueticals. I agree whole heartedly with most of what I have read. I myself refuse to take the medications which cause tremendous side effects, often leading to a host of other illnesses and disorders. I have turned only to organic/living foods, magnetic matresses, yoga, prayer, nutritional supplements, acupuncture and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. In a matter of four months, almost all of my symptoms have disappeared. This I know, is not due a "natural" remission, but my body's capacity to heal itself through proper nutrition and lifestyle. This is a wonderful introductory guide for those seeking to avoid the horrendous side effects associated with traditional "western" medicine. There are however several other natural protocols not included in the book that readers may also want to explore. Ironically, I am an Epidemiologist who teaches at a medical school, but who under any and all circumstances would follow Rigg's advise before taking the toxic medications which are currently available to MS patients. Thank you Jacque for a "true" contribution to the field of health. There are many of us out here who truly love and respect you for your efforts. Dr. Liza Molina



2. I thought this was a terrific book on using nutrition and related approaches to "heal" MS, primarily because Ms. Rigg does not advocate any one particular approach but rather emphasizes the need for each person with MS (or any other health challenge) to do lots of research and figure out what works best for him or her. Her emphasis on keeping a diary to record reactions to different foods and the inclusion of many recipes are both practical and useful ways to help the person with MS. After almost a decade with this disease, I am tired of medication and even more of insurance companies, and am committed to trying the nutritional approach to MS by starting a diary this week. Thanks Ms. Rigg!



3. This was fantastic. my partner has been diagnosed with ms but chooses not to take medication. this book has helped both of us and has improved his symptoms no end. it is so good to read a book that isn't full of medical terminology but just states things how they are. easy to read, easy to understand and the recipes really do taste good



4. In '97 I was diagnosed with MS. Someone told me about this book and I ordered it. Its a best buy with the best advise!!! A must read for anyone who seeks to listen to the inner self. Don't do as I did. Read the book and follow it. I wasted a lot of time before I finally followed it and my own inner self to wellness.



5. It should be pointed out that this book was written before the DMD or CRAB drugs were used to help suppress MS. Chemotherapy is only used in aggressive relapsing-remitting MS and in conjunction with Copaxone now. Jacqueline Rigg wrote this book from her experiences with active MS, over 20 years ago.
   I found this book's recipes to be quite useful. I don't believe that there is a 'cure' for MS, but that it is best to examine all options.
   Personally, diet plus DMD has worked very nicely for me. However....this could have happened anyway.
   Sticking rigidly to a diet just because it has worked for someone else is very common and can be encountered in all diet groups, Raw, Vegan, Best Bet, Swank, Atkins, you name it, there will be diet evangelists and their devout followers.
   Diet is not a religion and it's time that people grew up about this. The same goes for medicine.
   When you live with a disease that can affect your body differently each day, you learn the hard lesson of living without absolutes.

5 comments about Seven from Heaven: The Miracle of the McCaughey Septuplets.

1. I have been a huge fan of them ever since I saw them on a magazine covor. I love this book because it shares feelings and hopes that at first they didn't want 7 babies but after time they couldn't bare to lose one! A must read! This is good for children to!



2. In the rush to see how many they could breed via one pregnancy, neither of the McCaughneys apparently gave much consideration to the serious long-term health problems of their miracles. This book is a continuation of the same circular logic that they subjected the world to during their odyssey.

   As a person with a severe disability myself, I have little sympathy for people who intentionally go out of their way to place a pregnancy in circumstances that can give children a disability. Both Bobbi and Kenny were warned of the risk but apparently placed public relations dreams at a much higher priority than health and well-being.

   Certainly, there is a degree of risk with every pregnancy from environmental factors, but to knowingly place children's health in danger because you have to have your own biological kids at all costs--irespective of who suffers---is selfish and emotionally immature.

   There is nothing brave or heroic about increasing child suffering when there are numerous risk factors already in this world.




3. This is the best book that I've read in a long time that expresses faith in an ordinary, loving person such as Bobbi. (I didn't mean that as an offense) She has done the right thing by glorifying God in the press and in the book. I commend her efforts, because our God is an awesome God, and if we believe and have faith, He will supply ALL our needs, and He has kept His promise to her and her husband. I know that being in the public isn't what she dreamed of, but in this way she Glorified God, and that was meant to be. :)
   God Bless You and Your Family,
   Sandra D.



4. This book was great. I had a really hard time putting it down. I have three kids so I can relate to some of the things that was said.



5. I fell in love with the Mccaughey's right after the babies births. I still find them amazing. This book was excellent. I like the way it was written from both Bobbi and Kenny's points of view. I highly recommend it. :)

5 comments about Kate: The Journal of a Confederate Nurse.

1. Excellant Book covers areas of the war not gone over by others, I do Confederate Cemetery Research and she has in her Journal name of men who did and some unit information, that has help to lead to I.D.ing 5 Soldiers not listed in to N.Ga. cemeteries before



2. Kate's is a remarkable story, and this journal in her own words unfolds over the difficult days of the US Civil War. Kate Cumming is a fine, educated, intelligent and articulate woman. She is a woman of deep faith and lasting patience. Her journal passes on to us the daily routine, the sufferings of war and the deepest reflections of this noteworthy woman. The text is riveting, moving, thought provoking. The book is history from a very personal perspective - one well worth reading.



3. Kate's journal is amazingly well-written, and, as I said in my title, it is obvious from reading it that she is a true Southern lady.

   When I consider how I write any old thing, any old way, in my own journals, I am impressed by the way Kate kept all the wartime news- both on the battlefield and in her private life- so nicely organized. Don't let the word "organized" fool you, though, into thinking it is boring. This journal is anything but dull. Kate's writing style is intelligent, personal, detailed, and extremely interesting; the amazing part is that most of it is written whenever she can snatch a moment to herself from her nursing duties.

   From reading Kate's journal one quickly sees her devotion to the South and its "cause" for freedom. She was not a nurse before the war, but when the war began she volunteered to become one. As a nurse, she showed great compassion for the soldiers, doing everything in her power to alleviate their suffering and to make their stay in the hospital as pleasant as possible, under the terrible circumstances in which she worked. Sometimes her burden would seem too heavy, and she would almost make up her mind to quit, but her determination to be patriotic and her compassion for her patients would change her mind.

   Kate Cumming was a true lady, and this fact also made her journal enjoyable. She is well-mannered; for instance, when she does dislike someone she exercises reserve in writing about them, even though she is writing in her private journal. She does greatly dislike "Yankees", but instead of simply raving bitterly about them, she relates the incidents that cause her to dislike them. Overall, Kate is quiet and observant, and likes to write about the better things that occur in her life (something as simple as meeting a friend on the train, or having something extra nice for dinner) rather than dwell negatively on the hardships that she was experiencing.

   I highly recommend this wartime journal for anyone interested in a truly personal account of a nurse during the Civil War. The fact that Kate was a Southerner makes it even more interesting, because on the whole she went through more than her Northern counterparts did. She was a patriotic lady, and her attitude throughout the war makes her journal a pleasure to read.




4. This book is the masterfully written journal of Kate Cumming. Miss Cumming was a confederate
   nurse during the Civil War. Like Clara Barton in the north, Kate cares for hundreds of the suffering soldiers. Miss Cumming works at Corinth, Mississippi toward the start of the book. Here at Corinth men are brought in every day from the bloody battlefield of Shiloh. She works in Chattanooga for a few months. Also she did her duty as a nurse in Mobile, Alabama(her hometown) Kate relates in her flowing writing the many thoughts that ran through her mind during those long, hard, years. She tells of how much faith in God these men had. This really touched me. Kate said, while speaking of the men's faith, that she had not met one man in her hospital that did not know the Lord. This is quite a statement! To think of all that these men went through at Shiloh, Stone's River, and so many others! I would highly recommend this book because it reveals the true history from a woman who lived at the time and was a witness to these events in our country's history.



5. I heard about Kate Cumming at a Celtic festival in Virginia where Irish singer and songwriter Jed Marum (SOUL OF A WANDERER) told her story, talked about her diary and sang two beautiful songs that her life inspired him to write. I knew I had to read the book, and I was NOT disappointed!

   Kate's devotion to her adopted homeland and her deep faith are inspiring. Her thoughts and feelings about the war and her battle front experience evolve over the 3 years of the diary - and they are eloquently expressed in its pages. This book is a treasure!

5 comments about Dispensing with the Truth: The Victims, the Drug Companies, and the Dramatic Story Behind the Battle over Fen-Phen.

1. On a recommendation from the website for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, I purchased this book and was riveted from beginning to end. As a woman who takes medicine for depression, and has a sister who took Redux for two months, I found this book a true shocker and a well-told tale. Alicia Mundy arranges a vast amount of material and lays out a stark and gripping tale of how the FDA - many of whose members are on the drug companies' payrolls - approved Redux despite its proven history of making women (literally) deathly ill. I felt tremendous solidarity with the lawyers prosecuting the case, among them Alex MacDonald, who worked in tandem with his wife, Dr. Maureen MacDonald (a doctor specializing in anesthesia). Because it is a true story, Mundy's book does two things: one, it makes the readers (including myself) far more wary of the FDA and the drugs our doctors prescribe, and two, its story takes twists and turns no fiction book could plausibly get away with. If you take prescription medicine of any kind for any reason, read this book, and remember Mary Linnen the next time you think about buying weight-loss drugs.



2. The book discusses several cases of Fen-Phen, the diet drug. The book goes through the history of the drug, the drug companies efforts to conceal the negative side-effects of the drugs. It continues on through the FDA approval process, how the drug companies paid for numerous studies to prove the drugs were safe and wrote articles and paid doctors to publish the articles in the doctor's names. On come the lawyers to protect the injured victims and the ones for the drug companies. The book even covers the power struggles between plaintiffs attorneys fighting among themselves.

   As an attorney, I am inspired to grow my career into Plaintiff's drug litigation because the problems plaguing Fen-Phen will likely repeat.




3. There have been a lot of words written about this combination that are simply WRONG. They have been taken in other countries
   without problems and side-effects seen in this country and that is because of abuse. Fen-Phen was developed for use by diabetics
   who have a harder time reducing than the regular guy and what's
   more, when taken as prescribed, it not only did take the weight off, it regulated sugar levels so well, many diabetics were able
   to come off insulin! There's where the real problem started - the
   insulin manufacturers suddenly had competition. Then you had too
   many doctors prescribing Fen-Phen for patients who wanted to drop
   20 pounds who then upped the dosage on their own figuring it would work even better and faster...the result was the legal disaster we face now. Fen-Phen should never have been prescribed for anyone who wasn't at least 50lbs. overweight but it was handed out on a regular basis to anyone who asked right before it was removed from the market. For those who took Fen-Phen without any resultant problems this was just another slap in the face for
   the obese who now have no other options but surgery or chronic
   diarrhea. Stricter regulations on how this could be prescribed
   would have prevented a lot of unnecessary deaths; Viagra has
   killed far more people since it became available than Fen-Phen
   ever did and yet it's still widely available. Food for thought?



4. Tens of thousands of claimants have hit the jackpot with Phen-fen. Fraudulant claims are rampant and people like this claim moral high ground. Disgusting. Without tort reform, the drug industry will go down in flames. Who in their right mind would develop a drug for the severely obese now, as a group they are a high risk group anyway, possibly higher risk than any other, unhealthy and prone to disease...and their numbers are growing daily. Our legal system has brought access to new medicines to treat obesity to a new low, and subjected us all to their amoral "justice" at the expense of American jobs to boot. That is the real story!



5. This superb publication serves as an important guide for anyone who wants to know how drug companies operate and how trial lawyers help to uncover corporate dirt.
   
   Preying on consumers and health care providers ,drug companies hype the benefits of their drugs, while hiding the dirt about the known dangers of their pills .
   
   While Fen-Phen is now off the market, the manner in which the pharmaceutical companies operate in marketing and selling other drugs remains business as usual !

4 comments about The Darkness Is Not Dark: Overcoming Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

1. This book is full of humor and heart! In a time of serious illness, when the outcome is unknown, we all tread new ground. This book actually maps that ground in the form of a personal diary. The painful feelings that arise--fear and anguish, helplessness and anger--are here, but along with them are wonderful humor and humility, faith and gratitude. I was drawn into the fast pace of this true story immediately. By the time I had finished I decided to buy it for anyone I know who has to deal with a devastating illness and needs inspiration!



2. The Darkness is not Dark is a powerful, personal account of the physical, spiritual, and emotional challenges faced by Dr. Roland Roth and has family as they struggled together though his sudden affliction with Guillian-Barré Syndrome. This is a story of faith, courage, patience, and hope. The candid, day-by-day account in this diary takes the reader though the entire progression of GBS, through the terrifying periods of uncertainty and fear in the hospital to moments filled with hope and touched with humor. As the reader, you witness the remarkable and victorious struggle of Roland to overcome GBS, and you experience the perspective of his wife and family who had to watch helplessly the deterioration of their loved one. For those facing GBS and their families, this book will be a comforting companion which will provide you with insight into what to expect and offer hope and encouragement to get though the difficult times. For everyone, this inspirational book is a testament to the love and devotion between a wife and her husband, the comfort and courage found through prayer and faith in God, and the strength that unites friends and family members to help each other through times of need.



3. As someone who suffers from Chronic GBS (CIDP) I highly recommend this book for medical professionals, patients with GBS/CIDP and also their family and friends.



4. Suddenly thrust into the unforeseen grip of Guillian-Barre Syndrome (GBS), Regina Roth candidly writes about her husband's illness.
   
   Their faith in Christ shines through the pages of the book lighting the way as they travel through a valley of darkness.
   
   The author's words are spiked with love for her husband and gratitude for the creative kindnesses of others.
   
   For the professional, patient, family or other caregiver, this book provides a case history of one man's personal encounter with GBS.

No comments about Soaring on Eagle's Wings: An inspiring story of faith renewed through answered prayers..

4 comments about Bag Balm and Duct Tape: Tales of a Vermont Doctor.

1. Funny that he should mention James Herriot, which was more or less what I was hoping for. Despite a few interesting parts and parts that rang true (I'm also a doc) my overall impression was one of bordom. The book didn't have much substance or deep meaning. Sort of a vague diary which was not of general interest. (With an apology to the author's mother, whose opinion he keeps dredging up.....)



2. This book had me laughing out loud! signed, a former country do



3. Truly enjoyed this book. As a Nurse and a Vermonter I found this book to be so true of the Vermont I know and our blessed health care providers. I recommend it to anyone beginning their career in health care.



4. I also expected a Herriott-like tale of the flatland doctor encountering the crusty characters of Vermont, as he slowly learns about them and their quaint customs and eventually becomes a Vermonter himself. The book violated this expectation, and perhaps in a good way, because those kinds of books often have humor that is too gentle and plot that is nonexistent. Although the book does discuss his patients and the geography and economics of Vermont, through semi-fictional characters, it is more of a commentary on modern medicine and the doctor's place in it. Dr. Beach is severely self-deprecating about himself and the doctor's role in curing people, which appears in (presumably fictional) long, humorous speeches he gives to his patients who come to him with problems. Although the status of his patients as Vermonters does come up, it is rather less the focus of the book than one might expect.
   
   The book is a kind of mish-mash of doctoring, observation of human nature, commentary on medicine and its inability to do most things, and a history of one corner of Vermont. It was a pleasant read for me while I was on vacation in Vermont, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a light, humorous (but not hilarious) read. My only reservation was that some of the monologues he engages in with patients would be in rather poor taste if they had actually taken place in real life (especially the conversation with his terminally ill patient). I don't suspect him of actually talking to his dying patients that way, but the event was a little disturbing even in fiction.
   
   But overall, a pleasant book by a doctor who refuses to take himself seriously.

No comments about Succeeding with Autism: Hear My Voice.

5 comments about Passport to Life: Autobiographical Reflections on the Holocaust.

1. Passport To Life: Autobiographical Reflections on the Holocaust is the firsthand story of Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a successful forensic psychiatrist and a Jew who survived the depredations of Nazi genocide during World War II, when he was only a child. After the war, his experienced hatred and the threat of murder in his native Poland, but relative peace and asylum in Germany, and later moved to America. Sixty years later, his testimony is not only a narration of and reflection upon the genocidal atrocities he personally witnessed and experienced. It reveals the struggles of survivors to cling to life to be heroic and resourceful, in a situation where lack of power and arms among Jews in general meant that direct resistance against the Nazis would only guarantee personal extermination. Passport To Life is also an erudite and scholarly treatise on the nature of hatred, and the core human impulses that are all too easily channeled into sadistic and masochistic fervor ("you have to be carefully taught not to hate", the author warns), whether by organized religion, ideology, totalitarian government, or other sources. Passport To Life is particularly vital in that it deconstructs mythologies that have arisen about the Holocaust. For example, the author was personally present in Warsaw at the time the Uprising began, and warns against characterizing it as a true rebellion, since it claimed the lives of very few German soldiers and had zero military impact upon the course of the war. Rather, he characterizes it as a mass suicide of Jews who preferred to die from German guns rather than be sent to Treblinka. Since World War II there has been a tendency to overdramatize or exaggerate Christian rescues of Jewish people; Tanay respects the nobility of those who did so but also carefully delineates examples in which the truth is lost to the need to mythologize history and a few make good men into saints rather than confront the overall horror of what really happened. Tanay further dissects with clinical expertise the nature of hared itself, demonstrating that the most virulent hatreds are perpetrated against individuals or groups the hater knows nothing about, or believes fantasies about; hatred is not borne of logic or reason, and therefore rationality is no defense against it. Emphasizing the critical importance of broadcasting a counter-message to the many widespread propaganda of hate today, including but not limited to hatred against unbelievers spread within specific Islamic states, Passport To Life offers the key to understanding and hopefully preventing worse geneocidal deprevations in the future. Though it deals with complex psychological issues, Passport To Life is written in plain terms that invite no confusion regardless of the readers' level of familiarity with history or psychology. Passport To Life is far, far more than an autobiographical memoir. It is more than a record of Holocaust atrocities. It is quite literally the embodiment of its title, an indispensible contribution to Holocaust literature shelves and psychology shelves, and bears the absolute highest recommendation to school libraries, public libraries, Holocaust literature collections, scholars and lay readers alike. Do not pass up this book.



2. "PASSPORT to LIFE' by Dr. Emanuel Tanay brilliantly describes the heroic survival of an adolescent to save himself, his younger sister and his mother, through unbelievable circumstances, during the German occupation of Poland and Hungary in WWII.
   This autobiographical story describes a different type of holocaust survival, than those in the Nazi concentration camps.
   Mark Fintel (A holocaust survivor)



3. Bring your thinking cap and your Kleenex box as this autobiographic analysis of the Holocaust years will grab both your intellect and your emotional senses. The writing style generates empathy and is sophisticated, yet easy reading. Amazing is Dr. Tanay's ability to add palatible, forensic psychological analysis to the terrifying events of his youth. His emphasis on thoroughness and accuracy is startling. His accomplishments as an adult, he recognizes, are dwarfed by his accomplishments in just four years during his teens. This very detailed and personal story of luck, skill, ingenuity, deception, devotion and love makes unique and fascinating reading. This should make a great film- I hope Spielberg is reading. This is a required read for Holocaust scholars and a desired read for those who "enjoy" a story of a boy's ability and will to be a survivor.



4. When you pick up this book you will not be able to put it down. The "story" is a moment-to-moment recounting of daily survival. The situations that this young boy finds himself in are beyond the imagination of most people who have grown up in a country like America. The resourcefulness and intelligence necessary for a young teenager to survive each day, not knowing what will become of him the next, are not only an amazing and fascinating story, but a LIFE of a child. Not only did Dr. Tanay survive, he also saved his mother, sister and close childhood friend. His father suffered at the hands of Amos Goeth, infamously renowned for his role in the Plascow camp depicted in Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List". Dr. Tanay's insight into his own plight, the plight of European Jewry as well as the psyche of hatred in religion and ideological movements is intelligent, moving and educational. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the human spirit and the analysis of societal and religious movements that can lead to assertions, beliefs and actions that are generated by arrogance of opinion.



5. Passport to Life is a must read. It is clearly written and engaging. Dr. Tanay's story of survival is moving and reminds us all of how the genocide of the Nazi's must never be forgotten. Like the story of Passover, it must be retold over and over to remind new generations of the risk. This is especially true post 9-11. His last few chapters begin to look at the modern problem of Islamic fundamentalists and hopefully foreshadow another great book.

3 comments about When the Phone Rings, My Bed Shakes.

1. Excellent autobiography & well worth reading. I should explain here that I prefer biographies that do not indulge in psychoanalysis of the biographee. For this reason, I often prefer those that are written in first person & those that are written by the person himself/herself.

   Zazove does an excellent job. His writing is very clear & flows well. His life story is interesting, if for no other reason than to dispel so many of the hearing people's assumptions about those who lack hearing.

   I did find the chronology a little hard to follow, as he jumps back & forth between his current practice in Utah & his childhood & academic career. He says little about his childhood, probably because it was very normal with little by way of shocking or horrifying events. Highly recommended for those who like biographies/autobiographies and for those who are interested in the life of a deaf doctor.




2. I am going deaf due to a tumor and this is the best book I have read yet. It is not easy going from hearing to deaf at 39 and
   I am trying to understand what it is I will be going through in the next couple of years and this book has been of great help.
   I wish Philip, MD Zazove would wirte more books.

   I recomend this to anyone who is hearing or Deaf or HOH.
   He explains everything in simple terms and he is very funny.
   He wrote about things I never would have thought of.
   I am glad I found his book.




3. The author rambles a little bit, and the story jumps back and forth between the present and the past, but it's still an interesting book.
   
   Hearing parents of deaf children would probably find comfort in this book. Understandably, they may be worried about what the future holds for their deaf child. Here you will read the first-hand account of a deaf man who became a doctor, a husband and father, living a completely normal life. Most hearing people have never met a deaf person in their life, and this adds to the confusion for hearing parents who have just been told that their child is deaf. Reading this book should bring some peace of mind to those parents, and hope for their child's future.