"A statement of fact cannot be insolent." The miscellaneous ramblings of a surgeon/scientist on medicine, quackery, science, and pseudoscience (and anything else that interests him).

Category: Popular culture

Jennifer Block and Elisa Albert in the NYT: “Misogyny and the patriarchy are why skeptics attack Goop!”

Post author By Orac
Post date February 4, 2020
129 Comments on Jennifer Block and Elisa Albert in the NYT: “Misogyny and the patriarchy are why skeptics attack Goop!”

the goop lab--defended by Jennifer Block

Jennifer Block and Elisa Albert defend the quackery and pseudoscience and quackery sold by Goop by accusing its critics of misogyny and engaging in whataboutism. It does not go well.

Tags Elisa Albert, Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Block, misogyny, Netflix, New York Times, patriarchy, pseudoscience, quackery, the goop lab, wellness

Clinical trials Computers and social media Medicine Popular culture

Crowdfunding to pay to be a research subject in a clinical trial: The case of Lily Wythe [UPDATED 1/23/2020—see addendum]

Post author By Orac
Post date January 22, 2020
40 Comments on Crowdfunding to pay to be a research subject in a clinical trial: The case of Lily Wythe [UPDATED 1/23/2020—see addendum]

Lily Wythe and pay-to-play clinical trials

Lily Wythe is a teenaged girl with a deadly brainstem cancer whose case has made international news because of her family’s crowdfunding to get her into a clinical trial. Should investigators be allowed to fund trials this way?

Tags BrainChild, CAR-T cells, clinical trials, crowdfunding, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, DIPG, GoFundMe, Lily Wythe, Nicholas Vitanza

Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience

Andy Serwer: Giving RFK, Jr. an unopposed platform to spread antivaccine propaganda on Yahoo! Finance

Post author By Orac
Post date January 17, 2020
167 Comments on Andy Serwer: Giving RFK, Jr. an unopposed platform to spread antivaccine propaganda on Yahoo! Finance

Andy Serwer of Yahoo! Finance interviewed Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It did not go well. Serwer allowed RFK, Jr. to spew his antivax propaganda largely unquestioned.