All posts by Steven Novella

Founder and currently Executive Editor of Science-Based Medicine Steven Novella, MD is an academic clinical neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine. He is also the host and producer of the popular weekly science podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, and the author of the NeuroLogicaBlog, a daily blog that covers news and issues in neuroscience, but also general science, scientific skepticism, philosophy of science, critical thinking, and the intersection of science with the media and society. Dr. Novella also has produced two courses with The Great Courses, and published a book on critical thinking - also called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

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  • Founder and currently Executive Editor of Science-Based Medicine Steven Novella, MD is an academic clinical neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine. He is also the host and producer of the popular weekly science podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, and the author of the NeuroLogicaBlog, a daily blog that covers news and issues in neuroscience, but also general science, scientific skepticism, philosophy of science, critical thinking, and the intersection of science with the media and society. Dr. Novella also has produced two courses with The Great Courses, and published a book on critical thinking - also called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

A man in a suit speaks at a podium with the U.S. presidential seal, gesturing with his hands, while another man in a suit stands behind him, listening attentively.

RFK Jr. Sacks Entire CDC Vaccine Committee

I’m sure you are as sick of reading about RFK Jr. as we are of writing about him, but this is the world we live in. We cannot let outrage fatigue cause us to take our eye off the ball. If nothing else, SBM needs to chronicle every anti-science move that this administration makes. As most people, and certainly most readers here,...

/ June 11, 2025
Bottles of various vegetable oils, including brands like Goya, Wesson, LouAna, and Crisco, are neatly arranged on grocery store shelves. Price tags are visible below the rows of oils.

Seed Oils Are Not Bad For You

So-called “health influencers” – self-appointed health gurus spreading their unvetted opinions about health through social media, have apparently decided that seed oils are bad for you. Our chief health guru, RFK Jr, even blames seed oils for the obesity epidemic (based on the flimsiest of evidence and logic, which is his MO). I’m not exactly sure where this demonizing of seed oils...

/ June 4, 2025
A newborn baby lies on a hospital bed with arms raised, wearing a white knit hat and connected to medical tubes and sensors. The baby is covered with a blanket, and part of a colorful caterpillar design is visible nearby.

Personalized CRISPR Gene Editing Therapy

While the medical world is melting down from the absolute apocalypse that is RFK Jr., it’s good to celebrate that (at least for now) medical progress continues to march on. Recently published in the NEJM is a case report of a breakthrough that we may look back on as a milestone in medicine. Patient-Specific In Vivo Gene Editing to Treat a Rare...

/ May 21, 2025
A digital illustration of a human head in profile shows the brain with highlighted brainstem and cerebellum structures, depicted in orange against a blue background.

Brainspotting is Classic Pseudoscience

Have you heard of brainspotting? It’s been around since 2003 when it was invented out of whole cloth (not “discovered”) by psychotherapist David Grand. It seems to be gaining in popularity recently, so it is worth the SBM treatment. Here is how proponents describe the alleged phenomenon: “Brainspotting makes use of this natural phenomenon through its use of relevant eye positions. This...

/ May 14, 2025
A veterinarian wearing blue gloves and scrubs holds a small piglet while another gloved hand examines it in a clinical setting. The piglet appears alert and is facing the camera.

Pig Heart Xenografts for Infants

Organ transplant is a potentially lifesaving medical intervention, but there is a critical lack of donor organs. Even in a wealthy country like the US, there are about 100,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant, but only about 23 thousand organs become available each year. About 6 thousand people die each year while on the waiting list. For this...

/ May 7, 2025
A shadowy figure manipulates strings connected to scientific symbols while anxious people wearing tin foil hats look on, surrounded by skeptical onlookers with smartphones.

Trust Me-I’m a Doctor

Trust is a fragile yet critical resource for any institution. At the end of the day, civilization is mostly built on a handshake and a mutual agreement to follow the rules. This includes trust that designated experts have the expertise they claim, are competent, and are acting appropriately in the interest of others, rather than exploiting their position for self-dealing. A critical...

/ April 30, 2025
A vintage illustration shows two frogs in a lab; one reads a book and holds a flask, while the other uses a mortar and pestle. Text reads "Pond's Extract: The Peoples Remedy." Lab equipment and bottles are in the background.

Self-Treating with Serious Drugs on the Rise

One of the greatest innovations benefiting public health was regulation. In the pre-FDA “patent medicine” days, there were countless products on the market that ranged from useless to directly harmful. This was a time when you could sell radioactive tonics, cocaine-laced elixirs, and products containing poisons, like turpentine. The sellers of these products made many unsupported claims and preyed disproportionately on the...

/ April 23, 2025
A dense, tangled network of colorful, glowing lines on a black background represents brain neurons, with vibrant hues of blue, green, pink, yellow, and red intertwining throughout the image.

Mapping the Brain

I think it’s important to recognize not only how fake science can degrade medicine and exploit health care consumers, but also how real science can benefit medicine and consumers. It’s also important to separate hype from reality, because there often is science-based snake oil, meaning that there are fake treatments based on the hype of real science. We are near the beginning...

/ April 16, 2025
Illustration of a smartphone screen against a yellow and blue background. The yellow side displays words like "fake," "minimize," "chaos," while the blue side shows "verified," "fix," "trust," and "reliable.

The Misinformation Wars

The core mission of SBM comes down to a few things – examining the complex relationship between scientific evidence and healthcare, exploring issues of how optimally to regulate health care and health products, and fighting misinformation. Over the years I think we have made some solid strides on the first category. The medical infrastructure has been trending increasing towards higher standards of...

/ April 9, 2025
AI humanoid head connected to a set of computer monitors displaying medical images, likely MRI scans. The setup suggests technology and artificial intelligence in medical imaging analysis.

Will AI Save Medicine

Modern medicine is facing many challenges. As the science of medicine advances, it gets harder and harder. We have, in a way, picked all the low hanging fruit. People are living longer, and their medical conditions are getting more challenging to understand and to treat. In order to continue making medical progress we need more advanced technology. This technology – like stem...

/ April 2, 2025