Science-based Medicine Feed

I lived and worked through the transition in medicine from completely paper-based documentation to completely digital-based – using an electronic medical record (EMR). There is no question, the EMR system is much better. Access to information, communication, ordering tests, tracking results, and documenting visits are all much easier with an EMR. But modern doctors and other health care providers are not exactly […]

Shrug, move on and never admit you were wrong

Doctors who mourned the loss of a single speech or YouTube video are fine with the the mass censorship of public scientists.

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.