Category: Science and the Media
Zapping Antipsychiatry ECT Nonsense
These days people's perceptions of electroconvulsive therapy have a fictionalized understanding of what it is, and its harms. The reality is quite different.
Chronic Lyme disease: Fake diagnosis, not fake disease
Believe it or not, an encounter on Twitter actually changed Dr. Gorski's mind. Chronic Lyme disease is a fake diagnosis, not a fake disease.
Is Dentistry Science Based?
A recent article in The Atlantic claims that dentistry is not science-based. Is it right? Nah.
The NORI protocol: An unproven fruit-based nutritional treatment for cancer sold by a self-proclaimed “expert”
Mark Simon is the founder of the Nutritional Oncology Research Institute. He doesn't have an MD, DO, nor PhD. (He doesn't even have an ND!) Yet he claims to have discovered a dietary protocol that can cure cancer. Can it? (I think you know the answer to this question.)
Patients blinded by stem cell therapy: an update
An update on the tragic results of unproven stem cell treatments to treat macular degeneration.
Deception by omission: Del Bigtree’s ICAN calls the studies licensing MMR into question
Del Bigtree's antivaccine group Informed Consent Action Network issued a press release questioning the data used to license the MMR vaccine, with Bigtree claiming on a recent episode of his vlog Highwire that it causes significant GI issues that the FDA "covered up." As usual, Bigtree is deceiving by omission.
Great Courses: Skeptic’s Guide to Health, Medicine, and the Media
Dr. Roy Benaroch's course offers a toolkit of six questions we can use to evaluate the truth behind the often misleading media reports on health topics. It is a valuable companion to the Science-Based Medicine blog.
An HBO Documentary about the Theranos Fraud Raises Concerns
Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos to develop a device that could do 200 tests on a single drop of blood in a minute. She lied; it failed; she is being tried for fraud and conspiracy. The HBO documentary The Inventor tells the story but has some flaws. We can learn lessons from what happened.
Shots Heard: When the antivaccine movement swarms and harasses on social media, what can we do?
Of late, antivaxers active on social media have been ramping up their attacks on their perceived enemies, up to and including attacking even mothers who have lost children to vaccine-preventable disease. A new study looks at the characteristics of this group, even as two doctors form a group to help those who are victims of antivaccine harassment on social media, Shots Heard...
Combatting dangerous quackery and antivaccine misinformation on streaming services and social media
Last week, Amazon began removing antivaccine videos from Amazon Prime. Last month, YouTube announced that it was demonetizing antivaccine videos, and Facebook stated that it would be taking action to de-emphasize antivaccine pages in its searched. These are all good first tentative steps, but the problem of quackery on streaming platforms and social media goes way beyond just antivaccine content. Making it...