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 He ain't talkin'

Editor's Introduction -- The high-school text Addison-Wesley Health and Safety was the subject of two reviews in The Textbook Letter. Both reviewers reported that the book was oblivious to the lives and needs of teenagers in the real world, and both reviewers described passages in which the book's biomedical "information" was obsolete, distorted or entirely wrong -- yet the book's "authors," listed on the title page, included a man who allegedly was both a physician and a professor of medicine. We wrote to him and inquired whether he ever had seen the book in question.
This article appeared in the "Editor's File"
in The Textbook Letter for March-April 1991.

History Unknown

William J. Bennetta

Our issue of July-August 1990 presented two reviews of the high-school textbook Addison-Wesley Health and Safety (1989), and both reviewers directed attention to the book's title page. It lists two "authors," and it identifies one of them as a physician: "Nichols Vorys, M.D., M.S.L., Clinical Associate Professor, Ohio State University Medical School."

We wondered about all that, and so -- starting last May -- we made some inquiries. A clerk at Ohio State's Medical School told us that Vorys could be contacted at a private medical office, elsewhere in Columbus. We called that office, spoke briefly with a clerk, and confirmed Vorys's address for mail.

On 28 May we sent a questionnaire that asked Vorys about any role that he might have played in the genesis of the Addison-Wesley book. Our first three questions were:

  1. Before you received this inquiry, did you know of the existence of Addison-Wesley Health and Safety (1989)?

  2. Have you seen a copy of the book?

  3. Did you do any substantive work that, as far as you know, was related to the preparation of Addison-Wesley Health and Safety (1989)?

The ninth and last question was: "Would we be correct if we inferred, from your being shown as an author, that you accept responsibility for all that the book says?"

Vorys did not answer, so we sent the questionnaire again, by certified mail, on 9 July. We still have received no reply, and we continue to wonder.

William J. Bennetta is a professional editor, a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, the president of The Textbook League, and the editor of The Textbook Letter. He writes frequently about the propagation of quackery, false "science" and false "history" in schoolbooks.

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