In the Blood
How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took On the US Army
Ratings1
Average rating4
15
How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took On the US Army
Ratings1
Average rating4
The "high-stakes" true story of how an absent-minded inventor and a down-on-his-luck salesman joined forces to create a once‑in‑a‑generation lifesaving product: "Suspenseful storytelling helps us see and feel the struggle and frustration, the sweat and tears . . . Inspiring” (Robert Kolker, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road). At the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, dramatized by the popular film Black Hawk Down, the majority of soldiers who died were killed instantly or bled to death before they could reach an operating table. This tragedy reinforced the need for a revolutionary treatment that could transform trauma medicine. So, when Frank Hursey and Bart Gullong—who had no medical or military experience—discovered that a cheap, crushed rock called zeolite had blood‑clotting properties, they brought it to the military's attention. The Marines and the Navy adopted the resulting product, QuikClot, immediately. The Army, however, resisted. It had two products of its own being developed to prevent excessive bleeds, one of which had already cost tens of millions of dollars. The other, "Factor Seven," had a more dangerous complication: its side effects could be deadly. Unwilling to let its efforts end in failure—and led by the highly influential surgeon Colonel John Holcomb—the Army set out to smear QuikClot’s reputation. Over the course of six years, Hursey and Gullong engaged in an epic struggle with Holcomb for recognition. Ultimately, a whistle‑blower inside the Army challenged the Army’s embrace of Factor Seven, which resulted in a massive lawsuit led by the U.S. Department of Justice. The lawsuit focused further attention on the financial ties between the pharmaceutical company that produced Factor Seven and Holcomb’s research institute. By withholding QuikClot—which later became the medical miracle of the Iraq War—and in the use of Factor Seven with its known, life-threatening risks of heart attacks and strokes, the lives of countless soldiers were imperiled. Using deep reportage and riveting prose, In the Blood recounts this little‑known David‑and‑Goliath story of corruption, greed, and power within the military—and the devastating consequences of unchecked institutional arrogance.
Reviews with the most likes.
Visionary. Outsider. Hero. One of the great lines from the movie The Imitation Game (whose trailer I was just watching as I tried to find this quote, and where I found the title of this review) that has always stuck with me is "Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine." Obviously, in the context of The Imitation Game, it is about the legendary "Father of Computer Science" (and suspected Autistic) Alan Turing.
Barber, in *this* text, makes it clear that it could very equally be said of a man who may well go down in history as at least as important as Turing himself - Frank Hursey. Hursey was a South Carolina native living in Connecticut who discovered a remarkable property of a fairly common substance - and then set it aside like Mordin in Mass Effect 2 looking at some gadget he was no longer interested in. Until Bart Gullong came into his life and recognized the significance of what Hursey had found - and together, the inventor and the salesman/ marketer would go on to change the course of world history.
Barber, through a seemingly episodic format where he provides brief biographical sketches of each of the key players in the unfolding drama while keeping the narrative squarely focused on Hursey, Gullong, and their products, tells a story at least as motivational as anything has ever been told about Turing's own life. A story of a almost literal garage inventor who finds and develops a substance that has literal world changing powers.
A substance that can make battlefield - or anywhere else - traumas far more survivable, by finally solving a problem humanity had never before solved in its known history - how to stop mass bleeding.
This is the story of how Hursey and Gullong found, developed, and marketed the substance to the US military - and then later found mass market appeal in nearly every segment of the economy that might find a desire to stop a potential bleed out.
Including, per Barber, Taylor Swift having it near her at all times in the case of an attack at one of her concerts.
The only reason for the star deduction here is the slightly lower than my expected average of 20-30% on the bibliography, clocking in here at 16% instead. And as I've noted in other reviews of late, given that so many more recent texts are clocking in closer to this 15% point, I may well need to revise my expected bibliography size down a touch.
The tale opens with the story of the Battle of Mogadishu and the subsequent movie form of it, Black Hawk Down. Don't be surprised to see a movie form of this book itself at some point. Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
