Science-based Medicine Feed

Donald Trump has been sworn in, and his new administration has immediately turned its sites on the NIH. The danger to US biomedical research has never been more acute.

In 2017, Dr. Vinay Prasad said an anti-vaccine doctor was a "quack". What changed?

The FDA recently removed FD&C Red No. 3 from the list of approved food additives. This was not based on any new data or interpretation of the data, but rather was a response to a petition from food safety and environmental groups. Their argument was in turn based on the Delaney Clause, a 1960 law saying that the FDA must ban any […]

I’m at that age, 67 going in 68, where it is reasonable to yell at the clouds. Which, come to think of it, may be a good title for another collection of my SBM essays. Aging does indeed suck, but it is, usually, better than the alternative. As we, and by we I mean my family and me, age we get the […]

Even as President Donald Trump is inaugurated today and his pick for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. prepares to face confirmation hearings, there is trouble in "make America healthy" paradise.

This is what it looks like when doctors treat the pandemic as an intellectual parlor game.

My hospital just reinstituted mask mandates for all staff working with patients. They also advise patients to wear masks while in the hospital, but have not made it a requirement. I still have a stash of N95 masks so it was easy, and all too familiar, for me to comply, but I admit it created an unpleasant flash-back. All things considered, I […]

Ductal carcinoma in situ is a precursor of breast cancer that is usually treated with surgery, radiation therapy, and estrogen blockade. A new study suggests that watchful waiting might be safe for some women with DCIS.

If only they had let more unvaccinated children suffer and die from COVID, we wouldn't be in this position today.

Defenders of the GBD won't tell you what it actually said. I will.

In 1964 the US Surgeon General released its first report on the health risks of smoking and tobacco use. This turned out to be a landmark move, paving the way for the following decades of progressively more restrictive regulation of public tobacco use and marketing. In 1964 smoking was at its peak in the US, when 42% of Americans smoked. Today the […]

A proponent of the Great Barrington Declaration is comparing rejection of its "natural herd immunity" approach to the pandemic to the rejection of Ignaz Semmelweis and his findings. It's a deceptive comparison beloved of all manner of scientific cranks.

Once again, sheltered laptop-class doctors are treating children's health as a parlor game to advance their political objectives.

In 2020, the GBD was all about herd immunity via natural immunity. Today, its defenders censor that.

One of many shameful incidents in the life of antivax activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was his promotion of anti-MMR fear mongering during a measles epidemic in Samoa. Now that he could become HHS Secretary, his apologists are frantically trying to gaslight you. Here's how.

The time to start speaking out to defend vaccines from RFK Jr. is now.

I wish I didn't have to write this post, but the press won't stop referring to RFK Jr. as a "vaccine skeptic." He is not. He is antivax.

If pro-RFK Jr. propaganda wins the day, I am confident we will soon find out a tough truth- MAHA is all about RFK and has everything to do with vaccines.

If RFK Jr. "researches" vaccines, he will certainly "discover" they cause autism. It's possible that this "research" will be used as justification to revoke authorization for vaccines. That's always been the endgame.

The Science-Based Medicine blog was established way back in 2008. Since that time, contributors to this blog have been sounding the alarm about the harmful effects of pseudoscience and conspiracy theories related to health. Few people in positions of authority heeded these warnings or recognized the severity of the threat over the next decade. Sometimes we as health professionals were even mocked […]