Bad Science

Yesterday, my wife forwarded me a video on the placebo effect. Since I teach that topic to the first year medical students in their epidemiology course, I felt compelled to take a look. And I discovered Ben Goldacre, a British psychiatrist, who I think could best be described as a translational epidemiologist/comedian. He writes a column in The Guardian newspaper and a blog, both entitled Bad Science, all about, well, bad science. He likes to focus on media misrepresentations of medical studies, attempts by the media to scare the public about various health issues, and the corrupting influence of pharmaceutical companies. Interestingly, his father, Michael Goldacre, is the Chair of the Department of Health Care Epidemiology at the University of Oxford.

I've added his blog to our blogroll, and embedded his placebo video below. Warning: his language is somewhat colorful.