The Effectiveness of COVID Vaccines
One of the common themes of SBM is that medical evidence can be very complex. In order to come to any robust conclusion about what the science says on any question you need to do a careful and thorough evaluation of all the relevant evidence, including plausibility as well as observational and experimental clinical evidence. Essentially we want to look at the...
Tylenol Ramblings
This was an extremely difficult post to write. I live in war-ravaged Portland, Oregon, and it is like World War II here. Think Berlin at the end. Nothing but chaos, death and destruction. A burning hell hole. I sit in my cellar, the walls shaking from the brown bombs and artillery. Using the light from the burning house next door to see...
Surgeon General nominee Dr. Casey Means and functional medicine: Legitimizing quackery
Surgeon general nominee Dr. Casey Means is an advocate of "functional medicine." She, MAHA, and a new "board certification" will falsely legitimize quackery.
Doctors Who Glorified Trump Have Permanently Tied Themselves to Everything He Does
The purges, censorship, and politicization in the worlds of medicine and science are not distinct from the corruption and vandalism of the country writ large. We Want Them Infected doctors are part of it all.
Is (Conversion) Therapy Speech?
The US Supreme Court recently heard a case that could have devastating effects on the standard of care in medicine, and the indicators of where the justices fall are not good. The case is Chiles v Salazar, in which a licensed therapist is arguing that a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for gay and trans clients violates her free speech. So the...
RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines, part 4: Aluminum edition (or: Everything old is new again…again)
Last week, news stories reported that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had convened an "aluminum working group." Among the "scientists" there are antivax scientists about whom I've been writing for over a decade. Everything old antivax is new again.
MAHA and the Triumph of Feelings Based Medicine
According to Dr. Marty Makary, vaccines and medications are indicated or not, based on “stories” and how he “feels.”
The Growing Problem of Supplement–Drug Interactions in Seniors
Many people take supplements alongside prescription drugs without realizing the risks.
Nobel Prize in Medicine: Peripheral Immune Tolerance
Each year I like to write a post about the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. While advocating for higher standards of science in medicine we tend to spend much of our time criticizing pseudoscience, so I like to balance that by occasionally just celebrating great medical science, and the Nobel Prize is a great opportunity. The 2025 award for physiology or...
Opposing Chiropractic Vertebral Subluxation Theory
There is no credible evidence to support use of spinal manipulation to correct vertebral subluxations as a treatment for non-musculoskeletal disorders