When Technology Wounds: The Human Consequences of Progress

Examines a wide range of cases in which unchecked technological development took a significant toll on the lives and health of persons exposed to it

In an alarming and persuasive expose, psychologist Glendinning ( Wake Up in the Nuclear Age ) relates the stories of 46 American "technology survivors" who suffered illnesses allegedly induced by the products of sophisticated science, from the low-calorie, artificial sweetener aspartame (which reportedly caused dizziness, nausea and mental anxiety in a dieting woman in New Mexico) to weed killer (said to have induced migraine headaches, vertigo and gastrointestinal disorders in a California couple, as well as birth defects in their child). The author is herself a victim: she developed infections, allergies and "paralyzing depression" as a result of taking birth-control pills, and pelvic inflammation after the implantation of an intrauterine device. Glendinning also maintains that nuclear fallout, toxic substances and asbestos have claimed untold lives. She concentrates on the psychic trauma afflicting sufferers, which arises, she contends, from the patient's sense of helplessness and loss of trust. Perhaps quixotically, Glendinning urges forming an international union of survivors to alert the public to the risks of technological "miracles." Author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

We have a survival-of-the-fittest disregard for those people who are most vulnerable in a technological age, says Glendinning, and we must be catalyzed into caring action. Glendinning, author of Waking Up in the Nuclear Age (LJ 5/18/87), sets up a clear definition in a social and political context of what technology is (everything from intrauterine devices to atomic bombs) and carefully documents the stories of those who have suffered from it. These "survivors" have experienced denial, rage, fear, "unrelenting ambiguity," sorrow, loss of a sense of meaning in life, and suffering that "cracks the boundaries of what you thought that you could bear . . . ." At times, this book is too personal (Glendinning herself has suffered illness from using contraceptive devices), but overall it is effective in questioning modern "progress."-- Diane M. Brown, Univ. of California Lib., Berkeley
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.