exposing the horrors of unethical research

books:


	• Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited Elyse Schein, Paula Bernstein Random House, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 48 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

exposing the horrors of unethical research

Identical Strangers is a powerful and important first person narrative exposing the human carnage reaped in the name of research by certain members of the medical and psychiatric community. I won't repeat the story, but express gratitude that there are now ethical and legal barriers which should prohibit similar catastrophes from occurring today.

Readers may also find equally engaging: As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a Girl, by David Colapinto. Unlike Elyse and Paula's happy reunion, David Reimer's mutilation by a psychiatric researcher eventually ended in his suicide.

Harriet Washington's recent book, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation On Black Americans From Colonial Times To The Present, was even more difficult to read. Its gruesome expose of experimentation designed to maim and kill, is another dark chapter in American medicine.

It is my hope and prayer that we can learn from history and not repeat it. I am grateful to Bernstein and Schein for presenting their story in such a compelling and personal fashion. I listened to their memoir on CDs from Recorded Books. I had difficulty staying on time during the week I listened -- it was difficult to drag myself from the car -- I had to listen to "just one more chapter." For me it was an "edge of the seat" mystery. A most compelling read!

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Fascinating read

This book is riveting to the end. If it were just a story about identical twins separated at birth and then reunited 35 years later, there might be an "also-ran" feeling about it. However, this book is told by two exceptionally honest women who have shared with the reader their awkwardness in negotiating a relationship with one another, their ambivalence about finding their birth mother, their separate but related struggles with depression and self-image. The two authors keep the reader engaged throughout by pursuing a common mission: initially, to understand more about their past (unbeknownst to either set of adoptive parents, the adoption agency separated the twins and included them in a controversial twins study), and eventually, to find their birth mother. By including their research on twins, as well as other twins-separated-at-birth stories, the authors keep the essential nature-versus-nurture debate at the forefront of the reader's mind, and reflect meaningfully on their own experiences.

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Identical Strangers

I have worked in public education for 38 years as an English teacher, guidance counselor and school social worker. I have heard many stories and watched many adolescents struggle with their lives and their journeys. I have always been impressed,amazed and moved by the courage I have seen in so many of my students. Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein share their story in Identical Strangers and it is a book that is truly wonderful. Because the book uses both Paula's and Elyse's voices, it depicts their story/journey in a unique and wonderful way. As I read about each new event in their search for each other and for their own roots, I heard and felt each of their versions, reactions, and emotions and seeing and feeling a story from both Paula and Elyse was truly unique and very moving. The books is also so well researched in terms of twin studies, mental illness and adoption policies and procedures. This research coupled with Paula's and Elyse's own personal stories make Indentical Strangers so worthwhile, so enlightening and so very moving. My daughter, a PHD candidate in clinical psychology, gave me this book thinking I would like it. I did not like it; I loved it. Every reader looking for a story of love, family, courage and introspection should read this wonderful story of two sisters, twins, searching and caring for each other and their family.

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Thought-provoking

I was much more deeply engrossed by IDENTICAL STRANGERS book than ever expected. Good writing, good themes, all well pulled together, and honestly presented. Been raving about it to friends. It moves, and is moving. For anyone who's ever questioned the definition of family or what makes people really connect and tick, the research woven into the story is fascinating.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Elyse Schein had always known she was adopted, but it wasn’t until her mid-thirties while living in Paris that she searched for her biological mother. When Elyse contacted her adoption agency, she was not prepared for the shocking, life-changing news she received: She had an identical twin sister. Elyse was then hit with another bombshell: she and her sister had been separated as infants, and for a time, had been part of a secret study on separated twins.

Paula Bernstein, a married writer and mother living in New York, also knew she was adopted, but had no inclination to find her birth mother. When she answered a call from the adoption agency one spring afternoon, Paula’s life suddenly divided into two starkly different periods: the time before and the time after she learned the truth.

As they reunite and take their tentative first steps from strangers to sisters, Paula and Elyse are also left with haunting questions surrounding their origins and their separation. They learn that the study was conducted by a pair of influential psychiatrists associated with a prestigious adoption agency. As they investigate their birth mother’s past, Paula and Elyse move closer toward solving the puzzle of their lives.

In alternating voices, Paula and Elyse write with emotional honesty about the immediate intimacy they share as twins and the wide chasm that divides them as two complete strangers. Interweaving eye-opening studies and statistics on twin science into their narrative, they offer an intelligent and heartfelt glimpse into human nature.

Identical Strangers is the amazing story of two women coming to terms with the strange and unbelievable hand fate has dealt them, an account that broadens the definition of family and provides insight into our own DNA and the singularly exceptional imprint it leaves on our lives.

Imagine a slightly different version of you walks across the room, looks you in the eye and says “hello” in your voice. You discover that she has the same birthday, the same allergies, the same tics, and the same way of laughing. Looking at this person, you are able to gaze into your own eyes and see yourself from the outside. This identical individual has the exact same DNA as you and is essentially your clone.
We don’t have to imagine.
–from Identical Strangers

"A transfixing memoir."--Publishers Weekly
"Poignant."--Reader's Digest
"Absorbing."--Wired
"Fascinating . . . An intelligent exploration of how identity intersects with bloodlines. A must-read for anybody interested in what it means to be a family."--Bust

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