The Occasional Human Sacrifice is a fascinating look at whistleblowing and the outcomes that it has. Carl Elliott takes a look at his own experience as a whistleblower as well as several horrific medical research studies who deceived patients into participating.

Carl Elliott is a bioethicist and discusses several high profile medical cases that were uncovered due to whistleblowers. The author talks about his own experience of being a whistleblower and case that he blew the whistle on. This book delves deep in to the term 'whistleblowing', what it means, what type of person is a whistleblower? It also looks at the way people are treated, how they are alienated for having morals and acting upon them. Whistleblowing can destroy your life, career, friendships all for doing the right thing.

A lot of these cases centre around informed consent and the lack of it or omitting essential care. All the victims are people that are vulnerable and believe that doctors are there to help them but instead are just used as guinea pigs.

I only knew of one case due to a recent Netflix documentary which was about Paulo Macchiarini a doctor that was transplanting synthetic tracheas into patients which had a 0% success rate but had the backing of a high profile hospital behind him.

This book was good and it was informative and I really enjoyed learning about the cases, however I found it a little bit repetitive and not holding my attention as much as I was hoping.

Definitely recommend for people that like medical Memoirs and non fiction.

I work in healthcare/higher ed so was really intrigued to read this. It's an eye-opening look at what has gone wrong in research and the terrible toll it has taken on innocent human subjects. If you work in research/higher ed/healthcare, it is well worth reading this as a reminder of how important it is to follow protocols and manage work and relationships with a high degree of oversight and ethics. A must-read!
Thank you, NetGalley, and the publisher for access to this e-ARC.

The Occasional Human Sacrifice describes abusive cases of medical trials and the whistleblowing that came with them. How ethical are trials even when consent is given? Is the consent fully informed? How can some people continue to sweep something under the rug that has deadly consequences? Throughout the book, Elliot explains six cases which had questionable mortality rates as well as the impact, which is often far too negative, this has on the people who blow the whistle.

I really enjoyed this book. It was different than anything else I've read recently. I couldn't put it down! I will keep an eye out for this author's future work!