Journalist and author Fran Hawthorne has covered health care and business for more than 20 years for the New York Times, Fortune, Worth and Newsday among others. She is also the author of four books, including Inside the FDA, and most recently, Pension Dumping, published in April. In Diverting a Diet Drug, Hawthorne explores how a pharmaceutical company transitioned a weight-loss drug from being prescription-only to over the counter. "I was very concerned that drug companies and the FDA would turn the public loose on this so-called 'miracle' drug to treat obesity," she says. "I wanted to follow up to find out what was being done to protect the public."
Eric Smith trained as a statistical physicist, but he says he's done some "relatively serious dabbling" in a large range of scientific areas, including oceanography, microwave engineering, and statistical acoustics. In 2000, Smith joined the Santa Fe Institute to study ...