Author(s): Neil Pearce

NZ Non-fiction

This dramatic and very topical book tells the story of the fenoterol controversy, a major medical controversy some 15 years ago which involved an asthma drug which was causing an epidemic of asthma deaths. Neil Pearce was of the researchers who discovered, in hostile and often stressful circumstances, that fenoterol was the cause of the epidemic. He tells it as a personal story but it raises many issues about drug safety internationally and about the contest between money and science in medical research. It is gripping reading; and while the epidemic occurred in New Zealand its consequences and the detective story of the discovery of its cause attracted wide international attention in medical journals, conferences etc. First published March 2007.