How antivaxxers laid the groundwork to blame COVID-19 vaccines for Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest
Right after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed from a cardiac arrest after a tackle and was resuscitated on the field, antivaxxers immediately pounced, blaming COVID-19 vaccines even as CPR was still continuing. That's because antivaxxers had "primed the pump" over more than a year with stories of young athletes who had supposedly "died suddenly." (Warning: This one's long, even by Gorski...
Science-Based Satire: A New Fad Diet Has Farmers and Doctors Baffled
Are people crawling around farms eating directly from the plants or using their mouths to dig up root vegetables in order to better absorb the life sustaining essence of their food? No, and frankly I'm surprised at you for even considering the possibility. This is satire. But there are a lot of people out there partaking in some rather silly diet fads.
The New Year’s detox secret THEY don’t want you to know about
The dirty secret about detoxification and cleanses.
Eight Glasses of Water Myth
The notion that everyone should drink eight glasses of water per day is a persistent myth. Let's break it down.
Quack Quack
Joe Schwarcz's new book Quack Quack is an informative and entertaining look at quackery and pseudoscience past and present. A delightful read.
Was 2022 the “year of the gaslighter” with respect to COVID-19?
"Gaslighting" is a term that refers to the manipulation of someone in order to lead them to question their own reality and even sanity. Last month, a COVID-19 minimizer and antivaxxer, C. J. Hopkins, declared 2022 the "year of the gaslighter," revealing yet again that it's always projection with science denying propagandists. Unfortunately, 2023 looks to hold a lot more of the...
It Will Take More Than “Courage” to Restore Public Trust in Medicine
Judah Kreinbrook, a first year medical student, responds to a post on Sensible Medicine by a medical student that exaggerated the risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccines while expressing anger at how trust in medicine has been undermined. Having been raised by a family steeped in antivaccine views, Kreinbrook invokes his journey to SBM to gently correct his fellow medical student and...
Misinformation is Censorship
It's impossible to have a meaningful conversation with a misinformed interlocutor- and there are many- who insists COVID is just the flu, it poses a "negligible" risk to a healthy person younger than 65, and the pandemic ended long ago.
Should You Take Vitamin D Supplements?
Recent research found that supplemental vitamin D doesn't prevent fractures or have any effect on the diseases it has been claimed to help, and blood tests for vitamin D are useless.
After 15 years of SBM: Lessons learned and what the future holds
Last week, Dr. Novella discussed what SBM has accomplished over the last 15 years. I'm going to discuss lessons learned, what has changed, and remaining huge challenges. Unfortunately, after the pandemic, our position in 2022 reminds me even more than ever of Aragorn at the Black Gate of Mordor, but that does not mean things are hopeless.