Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13475

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Steer P.
Follies and Fallacies in Medicine
BMJ 2008 Mar 22; 336:(7645):673
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/336/7645/673-a

Abstract:

Petr Skrabanek, a Czech, was in Ireland when the Soviets invaded his country, so he stayed, publishing many criticisms of medical humbug while working with James McCormick in the Department of Community Health at Trinity College, Dublin, until his premature death in 1994. The book has been translated into six languages and is on the reading list of medical schools around the world, to encourage an appropriate scepticism about medical dogma.

For example, could strict adherence to evidence based practice be harmful to patients? This is the intriguing hypothesis suggested in the first section of this subversive book. It points out that although the placebo effect is very powerful, to work best it requires both the patient and the doctor to believe in it. As most of the common conditions that disturb our equanimity are self limiting, arguably the priority is for treatments that make us feel better, thereby boosting . . .

profphilsteer@blueyonder.co.uk