Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health
Original price was: $28.99.$22.81Current price is: $22.81.
Price: $28.99 - $22.81
(as of Nov 20, 2024 08:38:09 UTC – Details)
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
From Johns Hopkins medical expert Dr. Marty Makary, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Price We Pay-an eye-opening look at the medical groupthink that has led to public harm, and what you need to know about your health.
More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they’re three years old. Getting the science perfectly backward, triggering intolerance with lack of early exposure, the US now leads the world in peanut allergies-and this misinformation is still rearing its head today.
How could the experts have gotten it so wrong? Dr. Marty Makary asks, Could it be that many modern-day health crises have been caused by the hubris of the medical establishment? Experts said for decades that opioids were not addictive, igniting the opioid crisis. They refused menopausal women hormone replacement therapy, causing unnecessary suffering. They demonized natural fat in foods, driving Americans to processed carbohydrates as obesity rates soared. They told citizens that there are no downsides to antibiotics and prescribed them liberally, causing a drug-resistant bacteria crisis.
When modern medicine issues recommendations based on good scientific studies, it shines. Conversely, when modern medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict, it can mold beliefs that harm patients and stunt research for decades. In Blind Spots, Dr. Makary explores the latest research on critical topics ranging from the microbiome to childbirth to nutrition and longevity and more, revealing the biggest blind spots of modern medicine and tackling the most urgent yet unsung issues in our $4.5 trillion health care ecosystem. The path to medical mishaps can be absurd, entertaining, and jaw-dropping-but the truth is essential to our health.
From the Publisher
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing (September 17, 2024)
Language : English
Hardcover : 288 pages
ISBN-10 : 1639735313
ISBN-13 : 978-1639735310
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 6.5 x 0.95 x 9.55 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book very informative, thought-provoking, and fascinating. They describe it as an incredible, highly readable, and riveting read.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
9 reviews for Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health
Add a review
Related Products
Original price was: $28.99.$22.81Current price is: $22.81.
William F. Cosgriff –
Ask more questions
An interesting and thought provoking look at how medicine is often side tracked, or goes down the wrong track entirely, because of dogmatic or “groupthink” approaches to treatments or therapies that are not based on solid trials or properly conducted studies. The answer is to ask more questions and demand better trials and studies. A good book for those wanting to understand how a helpful field such as medicine can too often get important matters so very wrong. An excellent read.
Dave –
Fascinating and easy to read
Fascinating and easy to read even though I have no medical education. I am only half way done and I will edit this review if warranted but I am eager to encourage you to read it as well. Especially if you are currently lacking a healthy skepticism for medical authority.Edit: Here are my favorite passages -Freedom of speech is not designed for easy speech – speech that is welcomed by the majority because it affirms their beliefs. It’s designed to protect speech that is uncomfortable – speech that challenges groupthink. Today, more than ever, organized medicine is finding ways to limit and stifle scientific debate.It’s ironic that universities claim to believe in inclusion and racial, ethnic, and age diversity but, oddly, ideological diversity is excluded.As Noam Chomsky described it, ‘If you don’t believe in freedom of speech for people you disagree with, you don’t believe in freedom of speech at all.'”The best way to fight bad ideas is with better ideas, not by canceling scientists.
Lou skojec –
A very important book on a subject we all need
Excellent points on much of what is wrong with modern medicine and a path to correcting so many errors and misconception. Why for years butter and eggs we were told bad now healthy. Bad medicine practices. Everyone in my opinion should read this book!
Carrie –
Missing blind spots
Great read of evidence based medicine and the many treatments or discontinued practices which were branded medical dogma. Very educational for those who like to advocate for their own health.The only reason I deducted a star is (my opinion/blindspot) that the author has completely missed the point on Covid vaccine injuries. Whether that may make the content of a future book it is to be seen. He is highly complimentary of Dr Kariko the inventor of mrna vaccines yet misses the harm this invention caused to many people.
embryodirector –
Very insightful
Being in Healthcare this book is a great read. Thought provoking and hope to apply lessons learned in my practice
Yvonne Brossette –
Great read
Do not have to be a medical professional to read this. Very fascinating. Easy to read but shockingWill make you wonder about “medical studies”.
bbneo –
Excellent book, Every American should read
I have followed Dr Makary for a number of years.He is a brilliant cancer surgeon and public health expert.In this book, he lays out a number of important ways that human egos have led to bad public health advice… Even in these “modern times”.Would you believe that the American Academy of Pediatrics is RESPONSIBLE for the current epidemic of peanut allergies? Or that the “Women’s Health Initiative” has led to advice preventing women from getting life prolonging estrogen replacement therapy? Or that bad science starting in the 1960s led to bad advice urging people to go on a low fat diet?It’s all in there.
Paul R. Cosenza –
Great insight into medical science – and dogma
Dr. Makary gives great insight into the forces on medical science that misdirect clinical studies and their proper evaluation. Once standards of care (and their resultant economics) are established, new research which contradicts those standards are often ignored ⦠or aggressively dispelled ⦠to the harm of patients. From immunology to gynecology to antibiotics to surgery (and beyond), the author explains how medical dogmas can be antithetical to proper medical care.
Jenny –
Not up to the standard of Dr Peter Gotzche or even Dr Ken Berry. Too careful of his reputation me thinks.