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Wonder Drug
- The Hidden Victims of America’s Secret Thalidomide Scandal
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vanderbes
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
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Publisher's summary
The shocking, never-before-told story of America’s thalidomide victims
In Germany on Christmas Day 1956 a baby girl was born without ears. She was the first victim of the notorious thalidomide epidemic. There would be over 10,000 more across 46 countries.
For years the world believed the United States had avoided the catastrophe. After Frances Kelsey at the Food and Drug Administration became suspicious of the dangers of thalidomide in 1960, she led a successful fight to block its commercial approval.
But now, having probed government and corporate archives and interviewed hundreds of key players, Jennifer Vanderbes reveals a darker truth that lay buried for decades. The toxic sedative ostensibly ‘never sold’ in America was widely distributed for over five years under the guise of clinical trials, reaching hundreds of pregnant women. Scores of American babies were, in fact, born with birth defects likely caused by the drug.
Wonder Drug gives a voice to these hidden victims of the twentieth century’s biggest medical scandal, shedding light on the deceptive practices of Big Pharma that still endanger lives around the world today.
Critic reviews
“WONDER DRUG is both a first-rate medical thriller and the searing account of a forgotten American tragedy. Drawing on six years of groundbreaking research and guided by a keen eye for the indelible detail and an unwavering moral conviction, Jennifer Vanderbes has produced a shocking saga of pharmaceutical malpractice.” Patrick Radden Keefe, author of EMPIRE OF PAIN
“A tale of scientific detective work, corporate corruption on a grand scale, and human resilience in the face of repudiation and tragedy. This is narrative nonfiction at its most compelling.” Margot Lee Shetterly, author of HIDDEN FIGURES
“Vanderbes’s thorough investigative work and her lucid prose bring to life a little-known American tragedy. WONDER DRUG is...compelling...and reminds us why regulatory scrutiny of new drugs matters.” Abraham Verghese, author of CUTTING FOR STONE
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a White businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not your story to tell
- By Bianca S on 11-22-20
By: Chip Jones
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The Panic Virus
- A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear
- By: Seth Mnookin
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 279
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 206
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 205
The Panic Virus is a gripping scientific detective story about how grassroots radicals, snake-oil salesmen, and cynical journalists have perpetrated the biggest health-scare hoax of all time. It explores what happens when the media treats all viewpoints as equally valid, regardless of facts, from parents who are convinced that vaccines caused their children's autism to right-wing radicals who believe that climate change is a myth
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible thorough journey
- By Rachel Dewald on 03-22-11
By: Seth Mnookin
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The Birth of the Pill
- How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Gayle Hendrix
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 253
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 227
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 226
We know it simply as "the pill", yet its genesis was anything but simple. Jonathan Eig's masterful narrative revolves around four principal characters: the fiery feminist Margaret Sanger, who was a champion of birth control in her campaign for the rights of women but neglected her own children in pursuit of free love; the beautiful Katharine McCormick, who owed her fortune to her wealthy husband, the son of the founder of International Harvester and a schizophrenic.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Overall Excellent Read
- By Rachel on 04-02-22
By: Jonathan Eig
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King of Hearts
- The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery
- By: G. Wayne Miller
- Narrated by: Patrick Cullen
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 167
G. Wayne Miller has dramatically and meticulously reconstructed an amazing true story: how a group of renegade Minnesota surgeons, led by Dr. Walt Lillehei, made medical history by becoming the first doctors to operate deep inside the human heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved every minute
- By Brian on 02-05-08
By: G. Wayne Miller
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Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 587
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 418
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 417
This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
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The Problem of Alzheimer's
- How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It
- By: Jason Karlawish
- Narrated by: Jason Karlawish, Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 13 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story5 out of 5 stars 27
In 2020, an estimated 5.8 million Americans had Alzheimer’s, and more than half a million died because of the disease and its devastating complications. Sixteen million caregivers are responsible for paying as much as half of the $226 billion annual costs of their care. As more people live beyond their 70s and 80s, the number of patients will rise to an estimated 13.8 million by 2025. Part case studies, part meditation on the past, present and future of the disease, The Problem of Alzheimer's traces Alzheimer’s from its beginnings to its recognition as a crisis.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A must read
- By kara kuntz on 05-20-21
By: Jason Karlawish
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Mengele
- Unmasking the "Angel of Death"
- By: David G. Marwell
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 72
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
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Story4 out of 5 stars 66
Mengele describes the international search for the Nazi doctor in 1985 that ended in a cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the dogged forensic investigation that produced overwhelming evidence that Mengele had died - but failed to convince those who, arguably, most wanted him dead. This is the riveting story of science without limits, escape without freedom, and resolution without justice.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Good Lesson in Historical Investigative Techniques
- By PCMusicGadgetMan on 06-30-20
By: David G. Marwell
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The Queen
- The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth
- By: Josh Levin
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 236
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 200
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 198
In this critically acclaimed true crime tale of "welfare queen" Linda Taylor, a Slate editor reveals a "wild, only-in-America story" of political manipulation and murder (Attica Locke, Edgar Award-winning author). Part social history, part true-crime investigation, Josh Levin's mesmerizing book, the product of six years of reporting and research, is a fascinating account of American racism, and an exposé of the "welfare queen" myth, one that fueled political debates that reverberate to this day.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Very compelling story!
- By Marilyn on 06-24-19
By: Josh Levin
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Splendid Solution
- Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
- By: Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 247
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 152
Salk became a cultural hero and icon for a whole generation. Now, at the fiftieth anniversary of the first national vaccination program, and as humanity is tantalizingly close to eradicating polio worldwide, comes this unforgettable chronicle. Salk's work was an unparalleled achievement, and it makes for a magnificent listen.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book
- By Tim on 08-10-06
By: Jeffrey Kluger
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Charlatan
- America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him and the Age of Flimflam
- By: Pope Brock
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 250
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 134
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services.
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3 out of 5 stars
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nix the narrator
- By susan nenadic on 02-08-09
By: Pope Brock
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Bellevue
- Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital
- By: David Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,104
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 979
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 974
David Oshinsky, whose last book, Polio: An American Story, was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 12-14-16
By: David Oshinsky
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American Overdose
- The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts
- By: Chris McGreal
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 123
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Story5 out of 5 stars 122
The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An important read
- By Macmom4 on 02-18-19
By: Chris McGreal
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How to Survive a Plague
- The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS
- By: David France
- Narrated by: Rory O'Malley
- Length: 24 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 320
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 297
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 296
A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in a life-or-death struggle, who seized upon scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Ignored by public officials, religious leaders, and the nation at large, and confronted with shame and hatred, this small group of men and women chose to fight for their right to live by educating themselves and demanding to become full partners in the race for effective treatments.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read This Book!
- By Kay M Hawklee on 05-30-17
By: David France
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Mengele
- The Complete Story
- By: Gerald Posner, John Ware, Michael Berenbaum - introduction
- Narrated by: Bruce Mann
- Length: 15 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 138
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 119
Based on exclusive and unrestricted access to more than 5,000 pages of personal writings and family photos, this definitive biography of German physician and SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Josef Mengele (1911-1979) probes the personality and motivations of Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". From May 1943 through January 1945, Mengele selected who would be gassed immediately, who would be worked to death, and who would serve as involuntary guinea pigs for his spurious and ghastly human experiments (twins were Mengele's particular obsession).
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1 out of 5 stars
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ONE OF THE WORST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ
- By PAUL on 08-02-20
By: Gerald Posner, and others
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The Family Roe
- An American Story
- By: Joshua Prager
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 206
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 184
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 185
Despite her famous pseudonym, no one knows the truth about “Jane Roe”, Norma McCorvey (1947-2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1970 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent years with Norma, discovered her personal papers, a previously unseen trove, and witnessed her final moments. With an explosive revelation at the core of the case, he tells her full story for the first time.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just wow.
- By Schmulie on 05-15-22
By: Joshua Prager
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The Demon Under The Microscope
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,481
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,536
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,534
The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic medication. In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of the drug that shaped modern medicine.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book!!!!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-21-08
By: Thomas Hager
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Teeth
- The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America
- By: Mary Otto
- Narrated by: Suehyla El'Attar
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 269
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 238
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Story4 out of 5 stars 240
Teeth takes listeners on a disturbing journey into America's silent epidemic of oral disease, exposing the hidden connections between tooth decay and stunted job prospects, low educational achievement, social mobility, and the troubling state of our public health.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Content everyone should know; dismal narration
- By Elaine on 08-04-17
By: Mary Otto
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Plague of Corruption
- Restoring Faith in the Promise of Science
- By: Dr. Judy Mikovits, Kent Heckenlively, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Narrated by: Mariel Hemingway
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 795
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 709
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Story5 out of 5 stars 707
Dr. Judy Mikovits is a modern-day Rosalind Franklin, a brilliant researcher shaking up the old boys' club of science with her groundbreaking discoveries. And like many women who have trespassed into the world of men, she uncovered decades-old secrets that many would prefer to stay buried.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If only most of the public knew these facts
- By David Getoff, CCN on 06-18-20
By: Dr. Judy Mikovits, and others