All posts by David Gorski

Dr. Gorski's full information can be found here, along with information for patients. David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician as well as an Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University. If you are a potential patient and found this page through a Google search, please check out Dr. Gorski's biographical information, disclaimers regarding his writings, and notice to patients here.

Natto, from which nattokinase is extracted.

“Base Spike Detox” and Signature Spike Support Formulas: Nattokinase quackery to treat COVID-19 and COVID-19 “vaccine injury”

Dr. Peter McCullough and a number of "anti-COVID-19 vaccine" antivaxxers out there has pivoted to quackery to "detox" from the supposedly malign effects of COVID-19 vaccines. Everything old is new again, this time with nattokinase.

/ July 24, 2023
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

RFK Jr.: A fart-filled argument gives way to an antisemitic conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is an “ethnically targeted” bioweapon

Last week, RFK Jr. endured hilariously bad press about an NYC press event at which two of his supporters argued over climate change, one with lots of farts. However, the fart jokes soon gave way to darker side of the event, a Q&A in which RFK Jr. shared an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that COVID-19 might have been "targeted" against Caucasians and...

/ July 17, 2023
Neko Health whole body scans

The return of marketing hype for “whole body scans”…now with AI!

Two decades ago, I cut my skeptical teeth countering advertising for whole body scans by companies making extravagant promises for their products. This particular medical fad faded for a while, but now it's back with a vengeance...with AI! Looking at these products, what I see is basically the quackery that is functional medicine on steroids and powered by AI.

/ July 10, 2023
RFK Jr. no saline placebo

RFK Jr. resurrects an old antivax half-truth about “saline placebos” in randomized controlled trials of vaccines

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has resurrected the antivax claim that the childhood vaccine schedule has never been tested in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with a saline placebo controls (and therefore the vaccine schedule is unsafe). This is an old and deceptive antivax half-truth that ignores both what constitutes a scientifically valid placebo and the ethical requirements for RCTs.

/ July 3, 2023
Debate

RFK Jr. and Joe Rogan: Putting the old denialist technique of bad faith “Debate me, bro!” challenges on steroids

Joe Rogan conveyed a challenge by antivax crank turned Presidential candidate RFK Jr. to vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez to "debate me, bro!" In the week since, wealthy right wingers have added money to the inducement, and through an awful op-ed by Ross Douthat this weekend, even the New York Times has amped up the pressure for a "debate" about vaccines with...

/ June 26, 2023
Dr. Rashid Buttar

When an antivax physician “dies suddenly”: The case of Dr. Rashid Buttar

Last month, Dr. Rashid Buttar, a prominent antivax "integrative medicine" practitioner, died suddenly. Because he hadn't been vaccinated, antivaxxers struggled mightily to reconcile his death with their conspiracy theory about COVID-19 vaccines killing thousands "suddenly." It turns out, however, that that Dr. Buttar had not been a well man since 2016 and was as much a victim of quackery as his patients...

/ June 19, 2023
RFK Jr. no saline placebo

Is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. antivaccine? Judge him by his own words!

Last week, an antivaxxer on Substack—where else?—tried to argue that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is not antivaccine by encouraging you to judge him by his own words. I agree. You should judge RFK Jr. by his own words, as they show definitively that he has been antivaccine since at least 2005.

/ June 12, 2023

Steve Kirsch: How “anti-COVID-19 vaccine” antivax often becomes radicalized and just plain antivaccine

Tech bro turned COVID-19 misinformation superspreader and antivaxxer Steve Kirsch has now fully embraced "old school" vaccine-autism conspiracy theories, demonstrating how anti-COVID-19 vaccine antivaxxers frequently become just antivaxxers.

/ June 5, 2023
EBM hierarchy

Evidence-based medicine vs. basic science in medical school

Last week Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote a Substack arguing that medical students should learn the principles of evidence-based medicine before basic science.This is a recipe for amplifying the main flaw in EBM that science-based medicine was meant to correct, and Dr. Prasad's arguments would have been right at home on an integrative medicine blog. [Note ADDENDUM.]

/ May 22, 2023

“Subscription science”: Physician-influencers, social media, and conflicts of interest

Antivaccine activists and quacks often weaponize legitimate concerns about industry conflicts of interest in medicine into the "shill gambit," in which they accuse critics and defenders of science-based medicine of being in the pay of big pharma. However, the rise of physician-influencers and, in particular, Substack show that not all conflicts of interest are from industry or even financial.

/ May 15, 2023