“A Deeply Personal, Inspiring Story”: A Review of Fighting for Air by Ola Didrik Saugstad

 

 (Cardiff, CA: Waterside Productions, 2022). ISBN: 978-1-958848-03-6

When I first received this memoir, I wondered at its subject matter. Dr. Saugstad led the fight for decades to replace pure oxygen with air for newborns in need of resuscitation. In all honesty, I was unaware that there ever was such a fight. I certainly was unsure if this was a medical history piece from which my lack of sufficient background and context would keep me at a distance. Would it be accessible to me at all?

Having read this heartfelt book with the kind of page-turning interest one would expect from a tale of high adventure, I can state with full assurance that Dr. Saugstad’s story is not only far broader than the fight for which he is internationally known; it’s one of the most inspiring and human memoirs I’ve read in quite some time.

This humble Norwegian doctor—the grandson of the president of the University of Oslo during World War II who spent time in a concentration camp—took part in the student-led social revolution of 1968, which centered on the war in Vietnam, starving children in Biafra, and the planet’s growing economic disparities. His keen sense of justice—owing in part to the devastating divorce of his parents when he was a teenager—works hand in glove with his boundless faith in God. To this day, he identifies as a Christian socialist. Throughout the book, he reveals his reluctance to accept pay increases. He was clearly never in it for the money. He is also a fierce, although not fearless, fighter. During his distinguished career as a pediatric specialist, which has led him to speak around the world and has garnered him numerous prestigious awards, he has taken on academic dishonesty and fascism, character assassination, the abortion debate, and the mechanisms behind myalgic encephalomyelitis (which in America we call chronic fatigue syndrome [CFS]).

After his dreams of being a professional soccer player were crushed, he decided to study medicine. Focusing on his passions—children, biochemistry, and research—he quickly made his mark. Indeed, it is apparent that Dr. Saugstad’s life has been guided from above. His father’s second wife was the one who made his first big connection in the field of medical research. Certainly, the soccer pitch paled in comparison to the research facilities and neonatal units in which he spent his career.

I mentioned academic dishonesty. This should be an area of interest to us all. On the researcher, university, and journal levels, all you need to do is follow the money to see how research is distorted, fabricated, stolen, and suppressed depending on the needs of the governments, corporations, and foundations doing the funding. Researchers will even spy on their colleagues, as happened through the Stasi (secret police) in East Germany. Dr. Saugstad has met with it all in his time and his experiences are instructive, including his rewriting of “publish or perish” to “publish and perish.” In the very compelling chapter called “When Someone Has to Speak Up,” he even mentions, “[H]ospital management had begun to control their employees.” There were many reports of this during the worst months of COVID-19. When a child died unnecessarily, Dr. Saugstad got involved. He was told to mind his own business, that his actions were a form of revenge, and that he was a liar. He then received a veiled threat from the dean of the medical faculty, followed by complaints against him to a Dishonesty Committee. Although he was ultimately vindicated, the costs over time were considerable to both his health and private life.   

Dr. Saugstad’s passion for helping children not only led him into the oxygen versus air debate—he also discusses crib death/SIDS and is not shy about pointing the finger at Benjamin Spock, the once-guru of infant care, who recommended that children be laid on their stomachs (although oxygen deficiency and their mother smoking are also contributing factors). There are other stories of incorrect diagnoses and unnecessary deaths.

Fighting for Air does not want for irony. Dr. Saugstad’s son, Andreas, was given a vaccine against meningococcal bacteria type B through an experiment conducted by the National Institute of Public Health in Norway. He was 17 years old and his parents had not granted permission for him to receive the vaccine. Soon after, he developed myalgic encephalomyelitis/CFS. This life-altering experience spurred Dr. Saugstad to further action. The chapter dealing with the medical closemindedness and horrific treatment of ME patients is difficult reading—especially for me, as my daughter carries the controversial and easily scoffed at diagnoses of CFS and fibro myalgia. Within our family, there are far too many who feel she should just “get over it” because it is “all in her mind,” despite a two-year legal journey that involved numerous medical experts and a judge ultimately finding her incapable of working due to these legitimate medical conditions. This chapter relates much the same language (patients “harassed and mocked for their symptoms”) and struggle for legitimacy. The years of investigation into the vaccine experiment provide some startling and sobering results about the state of our governmental medical institutions and the coercion of military personnel when it comes to experimental vaccines and medical treatments. Once again, no less than the peer reviewers and editor of the journal The Lancet were implicated in cover-ups and distortion of data at the behest of those who set the agenda.

By the end of the book, it is clear that Dr. Saugstad is the rarest type of human being. Although he “attained the highest position in [his] profession [, with the] honor of guiding more than 40 young people toward their doctorates…” he remains selfless, humble, and self-deprecating in an area of study and practice (medicine) that is infamous for outsized egos. Although he has no regrets, he is aware that he could have spared himself and his family the stress caused by long periods of opposition that he quietly terms “frightening.” Like many of the best among us, he “suffers” from cognitive dissonance, “contradictory opinions—incompatible values drawn in one.” Leading thinkers going back to Aristotle have said, however, that cognitive dissonance is an indispensable tool for progress and a sign of intelligence. I agree.

He ends the book squarely in his socialist roots: “It cannot be right if it is correct that the 60 wealthiest people in the world own as much as the 2.5 billion poorest.” It is even worse than that, I am sorry to report: If you track back to 2017, it has gone from Dr. Saugstad’s figure to the 8 wealthiest people owning more than half the population of Earth (according to Time, CBS, and Oxfam). Despite his many accomplishments—including countless lives saved and improved—he says he should have done more to battle “exploitative political systems.”

What does that say about the lack of action of so many of the rest of us?     

The greatest gift we receive from Fighting for Air is a micro view of the pressing issues in the world of biomedicine, which truly affect us all. If one could have any doubt, the past two-plus years of COVID-19 and increasing talk of Transhumanism should have completely erased them. Do your own research and find ways to contribute to change. This wholly inspiring memoir will be your inspiration and compass.

The very last line in the book, in the Acknowledgments, is Dr. Saugstad’s expression of gratitude to those closest to him, who “have had to live with someone like me, forever preoccupied with ‘saving the world.’” I want to thank them as well, for sharing so graciously such a singular gift with the world.