I told you so! Scientists who were ridiculed, exiled, and imprisoned for being right

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Science, which in an ideal world would be immune to prejudices, egos, jealousies, and politics, has fallen victim to these forces for hundreds of years, according to this enlightening history from journalist Kaplan (The Science of Monsters). Upstart researchers are often denigrated by the entrenched scientific community, he explains, recounting Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis's discovery in the 1840s that doctors washing their hands largely eliminated cases of puerperal or childbed fever, a fatal bacterial infection that commonly affected women after childbirth. Despite years of convincing research, Semmelweis's results were dismissed by the medical community, many of whom were unwilling to accept that they had been the direct cause of so many women's deaths. Kaplan also relays modern examples, such as the story of biochemist Katalin Karikó, whose research into mRNA was continually rejected and underfunded, but eventually became the basis for the Covid-19 vaccine. Kaplan proposes practical solutions for removing biases, such as implementing a lottery system to allocate research funding, but at the end of the day, he astutely notes, scientists must remember that "we are all here for the sake of humanity." This is a timely and important call for change. (Feb.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Having written extensively about science during the COVID-19 pandemic, paleontologist Kaplan (The Science of the Magical) was perplexed when he met scientists who were hesitant to share ideas for combating the disease. Making the case that there is a scholarly hierarchy that dictates which scientists are heard and respected, his new book shows evidence of a long history of good ideas being discounted because the scientists proposing them were low on the ladder. For instance, in COVID research, there is Kati Karikó, a Hungarian American biochemist whose research into mRNA was nearly overlooked because of her nationality and gender but was eventually instrumental in the development of COVID vaccines; she later received a Nobel Prize for her work. There's also Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor in 19th-century Austria who discovered that postpartum infections could be prevented by having doctors disinfect their hands between patients; this simple intervention wasn't made standard until years after his death. Kaplan explains also how good mentors or champions can be instrumental to promoting a scientist's theories. VERDICT This engaging historical exploration of overlooked scientists and their discoveries is highly recommended.--Caren Nichter

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Why we need to listen to scientists. Science tends to reward researchers from prestigious universities, who are usually English-speaking, white elderly males, writes Kaplan, a science correspondent for theEconomist. Because of this bias, we lose the valuable voices of minority and immigrant researchers. In this informative study, Kaplan tells the stories of many heroes of science, including the Hungarian doctor in 1800s Austria who noticed that women giving birth in hospitals that used cadavers for teaching purposes died at a higher rate--as did their newborns--than those at hospitals that used other teaching tools. Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis reasoned that because doctors didn't wash their hands between corpse diving and baby delivery in the hospitals using cadavers, they transferred bacteria that often killed their obstetric patients and their newborns. Hostile hospital administrators, apparently seeing trouble if the news got out, fired Semmelweis and got him exiled back to Hungary. Perhaps the best recent example of "I told you so" is the story of Kati Karikό, on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania when she discovered that messenger RNA could help prevent disease from certain viruses. If the body's immune cells could recognize attacks, that could prevent widespread infection in the body, Karikό reasoned. The key to making that happen was an mRNA-based vaccine that would set up the body to attack a virus if it appeared. When Karikό couldn't get research grant money, the university first demoted her, then "threw [her] out of her lab." The happy part of her story is that Karikό found a job at a company called BioNTech, which recognized when Covid-19 hit that she had the key to creating a vaccine to fight it. Her research led to the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine, which helped save millions of lives. Karikό and her colleague won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2023, perhaps the ultimate revenge for a scorned scientist. An eloquent plea for reforming research funding and reducing bias in grant awards and peer review journals. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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