Category: Science and Medicine
Voices in the Vacuum
The failure of the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator to, well, coordinate a response to COVID-19 misinformation has left physicians to fight the uphill battle on their own.
Open Letter to a Medical Student Part 2: “It Was Criminal in My Mind”
Some of your fans want public health officials to suffer. Should you care?
CDC Reports Fourth Death Blamed on Contaminated Eye Drops
An outbreak of deadly ocular infections, which have cost some people their vision and even their life, has been traced to contaminated eye drops.
Open Letter to a Dean: You’re Allowed to Speak
You can publicly disagree with a medical student who carries the imprimatur of your university and who has gained attention in the national media by spreading misinformation.
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.]
Unsafe and Ineffective: Aseem Malhotra
British consulting cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra has become the latest darling of the COVID-19 minimization and antivaccine movement in the UK. Previously known for anti-statin views and advocacy of the Pioppi diet who pivoted to more dangerous misinformation during the pandemic.
Might “Vitriolic Attacks” Against Emily Oster Rival COVID’s Carnage?
To advocates of Feelings Based Medicine, there is no difference between criticizing someone's ideas and attacking them personally.
Repurposed to Radical: How drug repurposing created a global right-wing market for COVID early treatment fraud
A condensed timeline of the events, people, and far-right global politics that repurposed science and medicine to promote fake miracle cures for COVID-19 and spread deadly disinformation with a focus on the United States, France, and Brazil.
AI as a Diagnostic Tool
Using AI systems for pattern recognition in early diagnosis of dementia shows the potential of this tool.
“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.