To Dance with the Devil: The New War on Breast Cancer; Politics, Power, People [Paperback]

Karen Stabiner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 1998

Based on three years of in-depth research and scores of firsthand interviews with the nation's most innovative doctors, scientists, policymakers, and activists, To Dance with the Devil combines medical detective story with political journalism in an unprecedented behind-the-scenes account of the new war against breast cancer.

Interweaving the latest scientific findings and public policy with the gripping human stories of clinicians and patients grappling with the disease firsthand, Karen Stabiner chronicles a year at the groundbreaking UCLA Breast Center, following the progress of Dr. Susan Love, the eminent breast surgeon and author, and a number of Love's patients. From UCLA, her narrative spirals out to examine the turbulent national scene, moving from the White House and the halls of Congress to the cutting-edge labs of leading genetic researchers, from glittering charity events to bureaucratic offices where life-and-death decisions are filtered through the unforgiving lens of cost-benefit analysis.

At once an up-to-the-minute report and a compelling contemporary drama, To Dance with the Devil is a must-read inside story of the war against one of medicine's most elusive foes. It is a book destined to change irrevocably the way we think about America's devastating breast cancer epidemic.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's hard to shape slippery, sophisticated medical issues into a page-turner, but Karen Stabiner does this in a book that ushers us through the realm of women, doctors, and researchers uncomfortably banded together to fight breast cancer. At its hub is the personable, controversial breast surgeon Dr. Susan Love (Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book). She unmercifully twits others in the field, proclaiming mammography's limits and labeling the current, clumsy approaches to "curing" cancer "slash, burn, and poison." Other spokes on the wheel are well-sketched patients and researchers chasing genetic culprits and better treatments. Dead-ends and triumphs are chronicled in a chilling, sometimes overly dramatized account reminiscent of And the Band Played On. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Like all technology, medicine is entangled in politics and power plays. Stabiner chronicles this political landscape from a journalist's perspective, focusing on the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women: breast cancer. Spending more than a year in behind-the-scenes research, she details "the Dance," the rivalries and alliances created by researchers, government officials, and politicians in dealing with breast cancer. Stabiner accuses "bastions of basic research" of practicing benign neglect in terms of women's health and praises the heroes and heroines of the breast cancer "battlefield," e.g., Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who maneuvered monies from the military budget into new breast cancer research funds. She concludes with a message of hope. Similar in scope to Randy Shilts's And the Band Played On (LJ 11/15/87), this fascinating account is highly recommended for all women's health collections.?Rebecca Cress-Ingebo, Fordham Health Sciences Lib., Wright State Univ., Dayton, Ohio
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Delta (March 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385312873
• ISBN-13: 978-0385312875
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,042,095 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars scary book on scary subject, November 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: To Dance with the Devil: The New War on Breast Cancer; Politics, Power, People (Paperback)

This is a well-known and highly praised journalistic account of breast cancer issues, crafted by following Dr. Susan Love, certain of her colleagues and certain of her patients through Love's first years directing the innovative Revlon/ UCLA clinic. The lives of real patients; the politics of breast cancer activism, funding and research; the charismatic, unflappable Susan Love in action in the clinic and on the lectern - all these add up to a fascinating read. But would I give this book to a friend who had breast cancer? Nooo, I don't think so. Too grim! The cited statistics on recurrence and the effectiveness of treatment are the most depressing I've encountered anywhere. When you compare Stabiner's statistical portrait - which comes largely from Love - to that found in Dr. Susan Loves Breast Book, you realize, reluctantly, that it's the same. But The Breast Book discretely softens the blow at every turn. And well it might. Love wanted you to read The Breast Book, extract some feelings of reassurance, and get on with treatment. Reading To Dance with the Devil, you might go home and put a bullet through your head.

Will appeal to: health care professionals, activists and miscellaneous hard reality addicts. Not new patients.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Non-fiction with the drama of a great novel, September 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: To Dance with the Devil: The New War on Breast Cancer; Politics, Power, People (Paperback)

The author has made this most terrifying subject readable in the same way "And the Band Played On" took us into the world of AIDS.