Biography & True Stories
January 2018
Putting the body. Bibiana Ricciardi Cancer is still incurable in many cases. But I belong to the group of those benefited by the progress of science. A couple of months of radiation therapy, a few years of Tamoxifen, regular check-ups, and something else. Or, rather, to bear the collateral damage of hormonal medication. But I am alive, and I have my tits. What changed between me and those mutilated? Clinical research”, Bibiana Ricciardi writes in this book, which is, at the same time, a personal story - the author - and a collective one: about human beings who enter into scientific research protocols in which the test drugs that afterwards will be developed and will arrive at the pharmacies, from an analgesic to a cancer treatment. Through testimonials from patients, laboratory leaders, public officials, researchers, and doctors, Ricciardi delves into the world of the pharmaceutical industry and asks herself an awkward question: Is cruel the only way science found to test the efficacy of new drugs and procedures? Do people who put their bodies to it do so out of altruism, out of desperation, because it is the only way they have to access a cure that would otherwise be unattainable? Do they all have sufficient information to assess the risks to which they are exposed? Putting the body is the diary of a disease, a chronicle, a journalistic investigation and an excavation as delicate as it is deep in a minefield.
