Blind Spots
When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health
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4.8 • 33 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
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.
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The medical establishment suffers from a reluctance to reexamine its own beliefs in light of new evidence, according to this impassioned cri de coeur. Makary (The Price We Pay), a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, discusses how a 2002 study on hormone replacement therapy reported that the treatment causes breast cancer, even though its data didn't support that conclusion. Though the initial error may have arisen from a rushed publication process, the lead authors still insist on the erroneous correlation despite not being able to point to any supporting evidence in their own study. Elsewhere, Makary argues that the modern epidemic of deadly peanut allergies can be attributed to the American Academy of Pediatrics' misguided recommendation that young children be shielded from nuts (subsequent research has shown that "peanut abstinence causes peanut allergies"), a suggestion drawn from a misreading of a single research paper. The sensational case studies demonstrate the depths of doctors' intransigence, and Makary's clinical experience offers penetrating insights into the psychological mechanisms at play, as when he attributes a colleague's stubborn refusal to accept that appendicitis can be effectively treated by antibiotics to his urge to believe that the countless appendectomies he had performed previously were necessary. Incisive and damning, this is a much-needed wake-up call.
Customer Reviews
A new light
Well written book shining a light on dogma in the medical world. I only hope Dr Makary will do something about it at the FDA. I also hope he reads Sickening which also shines a light on the FDA and Big Pharma.
Thinking outside the box
While I’m certainly no medical expert, this book was very informative and I found it very insightful. I was floored how there are so many medical diagnoses/techniques that are either not working or just outdated, but due to bias or over complacency they were still or were the standard for an extremely long time. The author explores how these things have plagued the medical field and gives good insight on to how we can fix these dogmatic practices in the future. Highly recommended!