First published 2022
Chronic illness affects tens of millions of Americans, yet medical institutions routinely dismiss or misdiagnose these conditions. Meghan O'Rourke combines her personal battle with autoimmune disease and ten years of research to expose how Western medicine fails patients with invisible illnesses. She interviews doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts to trace how historical definitions of disease have created blind spots in modern treatment. O'Rourke shows that women, working class patients, and people of color face the greatest neglect from healthcare systems. Her investigation covers autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme syndrome, and long COVID as part of a silent epidemic. The book weaves together O'Rourke's experiences as critic, journalist, poet, and patient to argue for fundamental changes in how we understand disease and treatment.
Genres: medical, social-issues, non-fiction, health, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, personal-experience
324 pages · Hardcover · Riverhead Books
Content warnings: medical-trauma