Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong

by Paul A. Offit

(Morphine was the first intravenous drug.)

Pain, argued Portenoy, should now be the fifth vital sign (in addition to temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate). No one should be allowed to suffer.

during the 20th century, advances like antibiotics, vaccines, safer drinking water, and purer foods have allowed us to live about 30 years longer—long enough to die from heart disease.

it’s all about the data.

we all boil down to four essential elements: hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. If any one of these elements becomes unavailable, our time on Earth will end.

When the war was over, Albert Speer, the Third Reich’s architect, said that if the Allies had focused solely on eliminating the plant at Leuna, WWII could have ended in eight weeks.)

By the end of the war, with Fritz Haber as the ringmaster, more than a million people had been disabled and 26,000 killed by chemical weapons.

Everything has a price; the only question is how big.

there was no such thing as the Nordic race or the Aryan race. Biologically speaking, all humans were products of an intermixture of many genetic backgrounds. There was only one race: the human race.

Adolf Hitler, the world’s most effective eugenicist.

1. It’s all about the data.

2. Everything has a price; the only question is how big.

3. Beware the zeitgeist.

4. Beware the quick fix.

5. The dose makes the poison.

6. Be cautious about being cautious.

7. Pay attention to the little man behind the curtain.