Author Description

Beginning in 1976 deaths from asthma in New Zealand rose suddenly and dramatically, tripling by 1979. Neil Pearce tells the controversial and gripping story of how a group of young researchers, of whom the author was one, discovered that the asthma drug fenoterol was the cause of this alarming epidemic. Facing powerful pressures and hostile opposition from conservative medical opinion and from the drug industry, they persisted, and finally saw their conclusions accepted and the death rate falling. Neil Pearce recalls the years 1988-1990, the period of this struggle, as a personal story but he also draws attention to many issues about drug safety in New Zealand and internationally and about the contest between money and science in medical research.