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A Billionaire Mayor, Activist Doctors, and the Fight for Eight Million Lives
W. W. Norton
October 2015
On Sale: October 13, 2015
320 pages
ISBN: 0393071243
EAN: 9780393071245
Kindle: B00TMA9212
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History | Non-Fiction
The inside story of the most audacious public health campaign o campaign of the twenty- campaign o campaign of the twenty-first century. In 2002, a dynamic doctor named Thomas Frieden became health health commissioner of health health commissioner of New York City. With support from the new may new mayor, billionair new may new mayor, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, Frieden and his health health department te health health department team prohibited smoking in bars, outlawed trans f trans fats in resta trans f trans fats in restaurants, and attempted to cap the size of sodas, sodas, among other sodas, sodas, among other groundbreaking actions. The initiatives drew he drew heated criti drew he drew heated criticism, but they worked: by 2011, 450,000 people people had quit people people had quit smoking, childhood obesity rates were falling falling, and li falling falling, and life expectancy was growing. Saving Gotham is the behind-the-scenes story of the most cont controversialβ cont controversialβand successfulβpublic health initiative of our our time. Tho our our time. Thomas A. Farley, MD, who succeeded Frieden as heal health commi heal health commissioner, introduces a team of doctors who acce accepted the challenge of public health: to care for each of N of New Yor of N of New York Cityβs eight million inhabitants as their own pati patients. pati patients. The biggest threats they faced were not cholera or c or chemi or c or chemical toxins or lack of medical care but instead habi habits like smoking and unhealthy eating. As these doctors pres presse pres pressed to solve these problems, they found themselves batt battling those who encouraged those habits, and they resh reshaped their own agency for a different sort of fight. Farley shows what happens when science-driven doctors are g given the political cover to make society-wide changes to p protect people from todayβs health risksβand how industries e e e exploit legislatures, the courts, the media, and public o opinion to undermine them. With Washington caught in p partisan paralysis and New York Cityβs ideas spreading a around the world, Saving Gotham demonstrates how government
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