Science-based Medicine Feed

Dr. Joe Mercola embraced "alternative health" in the late 1990s, including quackery and antivax, and has since become very wealthy. Lately, he's fallen under the spell of a psychic grifter and declared himself to be the "new Jesus." What will happen to his business empire?

Fortunately, there is a better way. Millions of parents have embraced a holistic approach, one that boosts the immune system by harnessing children's innate, natural ability to prevent illness.

Why the value of placebo controls is not an affirmation of a powerful placebo effect

We have to face the fact that social media is now the primary way that many people get their information. More than half of people in the US get their “news” from social media at least some of the time. But I don’t think asking people where they get “news” captures the full phenomenon. People who watch TikTok videos might not consider […]

I have always had a bias towards the Appeal to Nature Fallacy: An Appeal to Nature Fallacy happens when someone argues that something is good, better, or more authentic simply because it’s natural, while brushing aside anything man-made as inferior or harmful. Or last my version of it. I have always thought of the human body as more or less tuned by […]

Even as quacks and antivaxxers take over our federal government's health apparatus, let's not forget why we need stronger, not laxer, regulation of "unconventional" medical practices.

I only feel comfortable suggesting an RCT of routine vaccines because I am confident it wouldn't get off the ground.

When Islamic Medicine Kills the Ayatollah!

It didn’t take long for concerns about RFKs unscientific ideological approach to healthcare to manifest. We are in the middle of a measles outbreak – the exact kind of situation for which we need a strong federal response. The person in charge of that response, RFK Jr., is a notorious anti-vaccine crank who is not a scientist or healthcare expert, even though […]

Stored blood quickly loses its effectiveness, so how can we improve the situation?

Our new Secretary of Health and Human Services wants to change CDC messaging about vaccines to emphasize "informed consent." What he really means is misinformed refusal.

Will new studies cause large numbers of anti-vaxxers to say "Wow. It turns our vaccines don't cause autism after all. I've been wrong the whole time."?

Myths spread by contrarian doctors to minimize COVID are being recycled to minimize measles. The anti-vaccine circle is complete.

"Journalist" Paul Thacker defends Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and the Great Barrington Declaration by rehashing the same old deceptive rhetoric.

An excellent article on the BBC gives a good overview of the continuing controversy over universal lockdowns as a pandemic mitigation strategy during COVID. We now have significant data about how various countries around the world fared compared to their mitigation strategy. Interestingly, this data is unlikely to resolve the controversy. But it can inform our decisions for the next pandemic – […]

"RFK Jr. switching sides on vaccines now is like an arsonist urging people to put out the fire he started."

Measles is back, and so are all the old antivax tropes about the disease and the vaccine. Unfortunately, there's an antivaxxer in charge.

The many doctors who are just now realizing that misinformation wasn't "COVID hysteria nonsense" have a lot of catching up to do to understand how the forces they've legitimized the led to this moment.

I’m taking a few weeks away from the blog. So today, an open thread with a request for suggestions on topics that you feel have been unexplored by the blog. Let me (and the other contributors) know the questions you have and what subjects you want to see addressed. Or use this to comment on anything else, SBM-related. The floor is yours. […]

What, exactly, is dyslexia? What causes it, how should it be diagnosed, and stemming from that, how should it be treated? We can even ask a more fundamental question – does it actually exist as a discrete clinical entity? These questions have existed since dyslexia was first described and named in 1887, by German Opthalmologist, Rudolf Berlin. Not surprisingly, he thought the […]