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By Marsden Wagner, 295 pp, $24.95.
Berkeley, University of California Press, 2006.
ISBN-13 978-0-520-24596-9.

JAMA. 2007;297:1718-1719.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Marsden Wagner is a pediatrician and epidemiologist who served as Director of Women's and Children's Health at the World Health Organization for 14 years. In Born in the USA, he takes on the obstetrical establishment.

Born in the USA has several recurring themes: obstetricians are greedy and afraid of women; the use of misoprostol for cervical ripening and labor induction was and is a terrible crime; physicians never criticize their colleagues; and peer review occurs behind closed doors to hide medical mistakes. According to Wagner, the answer to virtually all of these problems lies in a combination of home birth, along with the increased use of midwives.

I tried to read this book with an open mind but was put off from the outset by inaccuracies and misleading statements. Examples from just the first 6 pages abound. For instance, Wagner writes that "Cytotec is a popular drug among obstetricians who . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Joshua A. Copel, MD, Reviewer
Yale University School of Medicine
New Haven, Conn
joshua.copel@yale.edu

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