My Mother's Lover
The Orchid & the Dandelion (in progress)
Reef Madness
The Great Gulf
The Northern Forest (with Richard Ober)
In Slate, December, 2004:
Our first child, head askew, had to be delivered by Caesarean. We loved the obstetrical surgeon who extracted him: Dr. Burgee worked fast, made us laugh, and left almost no scar. He saved the lives of my wife and son. I thanked my stars we lived in a Caesarean world.
In Scientific American Mind, January 2004:
The use of antidepressants in children, always a warm subject, this year grew hot enough to burn, with revelations that both the drug industry and the FDA hid evidence that most SSRI (selective serotonin uptake inhibitor) antidepressants double suicide risk in depressed juveniles while helping children no more than placebos do. The story started as a trickle in spring and grew all summer, reaching a torrent at high-profile Congressional and FDA hearings in September , where parents told of good children moving from moderate depression to suicide within days of starting SSRIs. Some of these children died during the year during which the FDA delayed action. Congressional ubcommittee chair Joe Barton (R-Tex.) expressed the general reaction when he called the drug companies' withholding of data appalling and said the FDA's connivance suggested its initials stood for "foot-dragging and alibis." Even Dr. John Hayes, product team leader for Eli Lilly (whose Prozac was the one SSRI found both effective and safe) acknowledged the crisis atmosphere, noting with marked understatement that , "These hearings are evidence É there is a great deal of mistrust."
In Sierra, January 2000:
For 25 years fish farming has been touted as "the next great leap" in food production. The World Bank and many others promised that rearing fish in ponds or coastal-water "netpens" would yield cheap, high-quality protein while relieving pressure on overfished wild populations. Aquaculture now accounts for a quarter of the world's fish supply, and farms for freshwater species such as catfish and tilapia do indeed seem to be sustainable.
David Dobbs