Tag: Internet
The Nation indulges in fear mongering about cell phones and cancer
An article published last week in the Nation likens wireless telephone companies to tobacco and fossil fuel episodes in their tactics of spreading fear, misinformation, and doubt regarding the science of cell phone radiation and health. To produce this narrative, the investigation's authors rely on unreliable sources and cherry pick scientific studies, ignoring the scientific consensus that cell phone radiation almost certainly...
Vani Hari, a.k.a. “The Food Babe,” finally responds to critics
It’s no secret that we here at Science-Based Medicine (and many scientists and skeptics with a knowledge of basic chemistry and biology) have been very critical of Vani Hari, better known to her fans as The Food Babe. The reasons for our criticisms of her are legion. Basically, she is a seemingly-never-ending font of misinformation and fear mongering about food ingredients, particularly...
Dr. Google and Mr. Hyde
These days, it seems that everyone uses Google to find information on health, diseases, and treatments. Unfortunately, the algorithms used by Google for search tend to value popularity over high quality information, leading to quack websites sometimes showing up high in its results. So how can a consumer find reliable health information on the Internet?
Reliability of Health Information on the Web
Last week at TAM8 some SBM colleagues (David Gorski, Kimball Atwood, Harriet Hall, Rachel Dunlop) and I gave two workshops on how to find reliable health information on the web. As part of my research for this talk I came across a recent and interesting study that I would like to expand upon further – Quality and Content of Internet-Based Information for...
Mainstreaming Science-Based Medicine: A Novel Approach
I have often mused about the difference between being right and being influential – especially in light of the relative success of the anti-vaccine movement. Despite the fact that there is no evidence for a link between vaccines and autism, celebrities like Jenny McCarthy have manufactured public mistrust in one of the safest, most cost effective means of combating disease known to...