Author
Oregano Snake Oil
Oregano oil is being marketed with a variety of health claims, including as a treatment for various infections, inflammatory disorders, and skin conditions. This TikTok video by an “Ayervedic specialist” is typical of the claims made for this product. The claims suffer all the usual problems of the supplement industry, which we can go through them in some detail. But here is...
Real Time Computer Communication
For those with advanced ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or certain brainstem strokes, they can be what is referred to as “locked in”. They are mostly paralyzed. A tip of the basilar artery brainstem stroke, for example, can leave one only able to move their eyes. Many with ALS, long before they get to this point, lose the ability to speak because of...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...