What do you think?
Rate this book
The Skeptic’s Guide to Health, Medicine, and the Media
If you’ve ever sneezed while driving your car, did you immediately think, “Cars Cause the Common Cold!”? No, of course not. A headline like that wouldn’t make any sense. And yet, some of the sources we rely on for health and medical news are not much better. Many media outlets are perfectly happy to grab us with a wacky headline or an article that reflects none of the nuance of the study on which it’s based—as long as we buy the magazine or click through to the article. And we do. We take the bait. With 50,000 scientific studies published each week in English, many media outlets don’t put in the time and effort to adequately decipher and report on even a tiny fraction of those studies. But they publish news about them, anyway.
As consumers of medical news, how can we know whether the article we just read is based on solid science or trash?
We know we can’t believe every article we read. If we did, we’d conclude that everything causes cancer; any non-organic food will cause our death; we should never eat fats or carbohydrates; and high-dose supplements of every vitamin will save our lives or, depending on the specific article, kill us.
Professor Roy Benaroch of Emory University School of Medicine provides just the direction we need to answer important questions, look beyond media hype, and more in The Skeptic’s Guide to Health, Medicine, and the Media. In 24 fascinating lectures that address the most important health issues of our day, Dr. Benaroch shows us how to recognize the good reporting that provides balanced, accurate, and well-sourced information and the bad reporting that is incomplete at best and purposely misleading at worst. You’ll learn how to ask the questions that take you past the headlines and beyond the way health news is typically reported.
Would You Believe?
Dr. Benaroch provides numerous examples of headlines you wouldn’t fall for—or would you? While some headlines are published on obscure internet sites, others are published in some of the largest, most-trusted papers in the country. Every day, people take the bait to read about:
“Breatharian Couple Survives on the Universe’s Energy Instead of Food.” Just a little bit of digging reveals that the couple actually does eat food. Of course, they do.
“Traces of Controversial Herbicide Are Found in Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.” The article itself states that a typical child would need to consume 145,000 eight-ounce servings a day to reach the federal safety limit of the chemical in question. But the headline made for great “clickbait” since it used the successful technique of pairing a random fact with a recognizable brand name.
“The Soothing Benefit of Acupuncture for Babies.” The article states the goal of the study was to use acupuncture to soothe babies and shorten their crying spells—and then makes it clear that the acupuncture didn’t actually work. Yet, you would never know this from the headline.
Addressing the Top Medical Controversies of the Day
In providing samples of both good and bad medical journalism, The Skeptic’s Guide addresses both significant medical topics and smaller, everyday questions like, “Should I floss?” Some of the major issues and subjects you will look at include:
Cardiovascular health and the new blood pressure guidelines,
Cancer screenings and treatment,
The opioid crisis,
The obesity epidemic,
The price of prescription medication,
The stigma of mental health, and more.
To better understand these issues in all their complexity, you’ll go behind the headlines to learn more about the subjects themselves, as well as the media’s role in addressing them.
Building Your Skeptic’s Toolkit
With so many false or misleading sources out there, it can be natural for readers to become cynical about medical reporting and headline news. However, as Dr. Benaroch points out, there’s a difference between being a cynic and being a skeptic. Becoming a cynic and believing nothing of what you read would be just as ineffective as being gullible and believing everything. There is good health-related information out there, and The Skeptic’s Guide to Health, Medicine, and Media will teach you how to access it. You’ll learn six specific questions to ask yourself as you read, all of which begin with the letter “s” for ease of remembering. These questions form the basis of your “Skeptic’s Toolkit,” the lens through which you can determine the value of any article. They are:
Source. What’s the source of the article and is it credible for medical information? Is the article based on a study from a reputable university or research institute? Or is it based on anecdotal information from a non-scientist? You might be interested in reading a first-person account about someone whose blood pressure improved when she started drinking tea—but you wouldn’t want to base your own medical decisions on it.
Strength. Is the evidence presented strong enough to be valuable? Stories that review large clinical trials...
As consumers of medical news, how can we know whether the article we just read is based on solid science or trash?
We know we can’t believe every article we read. If we did, we’d conclude that everything causes cancer; any non-organic food will cause our death; we should never eat fats or carbohydrates; and high-dose supplements of every vitamin will save our lives or, depending on the specific article, kill us.
Professor Roy Benaroch of Emory University School of Medicine provides just the direction we need to answer important questions, look beyond media hype, and more in The Skeptic’s Guide to Health, Medicine, and the Media. In 24 fascinating lectures that address the most important health issues of our day, Dr. Benaroch shows us how to recognize the good reporting that provides balanced, accurate, and well-sourced information and the bad reporting that is incomplete at best and purposely misleading at worst. You’ll learn how to ask the questions that take you past the headlines and beyond the way health news is typically reported.
Would You Believe?
Dr. Benaroch provides numerous examples of headlines you wouldn’t fall for—or would you? While some headlines are published on obscure internet sites, others are published in some of the largest, most-trusted papers in the country. Every day, people take the bait to read about:
“Breatharian Couple Survives on the Universe’s Energy Instead of Food.” Just a little bit of digging reveals that the couple actually does eat food. Of course, they do.
“Traces of Controversial Herbicide Are Found in Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.” The article itself states that a typical child would need to consume 145,000 eight-ounce servings a day to reach the federal safety limit of the chemical in question. But the headline made for great “clickbait” since it used the successful technique of pairing a random fact with a recognizable brand name.
“The Soothing Benefit of Acupuncture for Babies.” The article states the goal of the study was to use acupuncture to soothe babies and shorten their crying spells—and then makes it clear that the acupuncture didn’t actually work. Yet, you would never know this from the headline.
Addressing the Top Medical Controversies of the Day
In providing samples of both good and bad medical journalism, The Skeptic’s Guide addresses both significant medical topics and smaller, everyday questions like, “Should I floss?” Some of the major issues and subjects you will look at include:
Cardiovascular health and the new blood pressure guidelines,
Cancer screenings and treatment,
The opioid crisis,
The obesity epidemic,
The price of prescription medication,
The stigma of mental health, and more.
To better understand these issues in all their complexity, you’ll go behind the headlines to learn more about the subjects themselves, as well as the media’s role in addressing them.
Building Your Skeptic’s Toolkit
With so many false or misleading sources out there, it can be natural for readers to become cynical about medical reporting and headline news. However, as Dr. Benaroch points out, there’s a difference between being a cynic and being a skeptic. Becoming a cynic and believing nothing of what you read would be just as ineffective as being gullible and believing everything. There is good health-related information out there, and The Skeptic’s Guide to Health, Medicine, and Media will teach you how to access it. You’ll learn six specific questions to ask yourself as you read, all of which begin with the letter “s” for ease of remembering. These questions form the basis of your “Skeptic’s Toolkit,” the lens through which you can determine the value of any article. They are:
Source. What’s the source of the article and is it credible for medical information? Is the article based on a study from a reputable university or research institute? Or is it based on anecdotal information from a non-scientist? You might be interested in reading a first-person account about someone whose blood pressure improved when she started drinking tea—but you wouldn’t want to base your own medical decisions on it.
Strength. Is the evidence presented strong enough to be valuable? Stories that review large clinical trials...
Audible Audio
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 30, 2019
A very good and necessary read for everyone, as we are always bombarded with health advice/salesmanship/decisions and we all could use a handy skeptic toolkit.
The author offers practical (6 Ss) toolkit with tangible, up to date examples.
The author offers practical (6 Ss) toolkit with tangible, up to date examples.
April 17, 2020
Note: this review is for the audio only version. I don't know if a lecture series can have spoilers, but I do summarize the main takeaways below.
I picked this up in light of the pandemic, and overall, it was pretty interesting. Dr. Benaroch covered a lot of topics that people know of but know little about (Flint water crisis, whether vitamins are worth it, media's role in reducing cigarette usage) and offered quite actionable steps to determine the legitimacy of "scientific" articles. He doesn't purport to turn listeners into medical professionals, but rather encourages people to check whether a claim is:
Salient to you: If it was conducted only on liver cells, mice, or octogenarians -- does that have implications for you personally?
Sources: Does the article cite anything at all? Of the citations, are they from reputable sources?
Sensible: Does the claim make sense? If an article from 2005 claimed to have found the cure for the common cold, wouldn't that be widely used by now?
Overall, I wouldn't say that I learn any world-shatteringly new techniques for consuming information, but this was a very good reminder to be skeptical of headlines and to consciously consume information. Dr. Benaroch is an engaging presenter, and I feel that the time I spent listening to him was well used.
I picked this up in light of the pandemic, and overall, it was pretty interesting. Dr. Benaroch covered a lot of topics that people know of but know little about (Flint water crisis, whether vitamins are worth it, media's role in reducing cigarette usage) and offered quite actionable steps to determine the legitimacy of "scientific" articles. He doesn't purport to turn listeners into medical professionals, but rather encourages people to check whether a claim is:
Salient to you: If it was conducted only on liver cells, mice, or octogenarians -- does that have implications for you personally?
Sources: Does the article cite anything at all? Of the citations, are they from reputable sources?
Sensible: Does the claim make sense? If an article from 2005 claimed to have found the cure for the common cold, wouldn't that be widely used by now?
Overall, I wouldn't say that I learn any world-shatteringly new techniques for consuming information, but this was a very good reminder to be skeptical of headlines and to consciously consume information. Dr. Benaroch is an engaging presenter, and I feel that the time I spent listening to him was well used.
November 20, 2019
This is all the crap the media has been telling you is true and is a load of BS. Roy Benaroch's narration of his book with cited peer reviewed articles supporting a case by case where journalists looking for a big story gave us disinformation. It's entertaining. Scary. And rocked some of the suppositions I had made from "scientific articles" in the past. I loved it.
November 3, 2023
I highly recommend reading this book. However, I would do so with a little skepticism. The author does a great job of pointing out of all the useless, conflicting and bad information that we are being bombarded with on a daily basis. He provides structure to help us make a decision on whether to believe a headline or an article, using his “6 S” approach. I do take issue with his stance on organics using just one of his test points which is does it make sense. Consider that Monsanto has lost billions of dollars in court settlements because there is a link that ties the use of Roundup to a myriad of cancers. And yet our wheat producers are spraying the crops with it just before harvest, apparently it dries out the wheat so it is easier to harvest. Therefore, it makes no sense that we are ingesting it daily, the professor has no issues with this. His take on vitamins is also a swing and a miss in my opinion. He is correct that you don’t need to take one if you’re eating a nourishing diet but most people aren’t. Lastly, he makes no mention of the fact that Medicare isn’t allowed to negotiate drug prices. No one can provide a reasonable explanation of how this helps anyone. Btw, the explanation given is it would impede research of new drugs. I don’t believe you discuss healthcare in the US and ignore the fact that largest purchaser of drugs cannot negotiate a fair price. All nit picking aside this lecture series is informative and thought provoking.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 16, 2023
This is not a book. It's a collection of lectures, each telling a self-contained story of the media misinforming the public on a matter related to medicine. These anecdotes seem to be selected for more their interest to Roy than to serve as examples to apply skepticism. The skeptical thread linking these lectures together is a mess. I've seen better written High School essays. He just presents a bulleted list of words that begin with "S" and repeats this word list between lectures. This is worthless.
If you want a bunch of medical anecdotes, it's a good book to read. You can trust the author is well on the side of science and the medical consensus. But if you would rather spend time on a book that helps you think critically about medicine in the media, skip this book and read anything by Steven Novella.
Also, this is a nitpick, but the audio book is infuriating to listen to because between every lecture the same pre-recorded disclaimer is played. It says this is not personal medical advice. Very important to have, but absolutely unnecessary to repeat. By the end of the book, I began to fear the end of each chapter because it meant I'd be forced to listen to that same dreary disclaimer I'd already heard a dozen times. Miserable. And totally unnecessary.
If you want a bunch of medical anecdotes, it's a good book to read. You can trust the author is well on the side of science and the medical consensus. But if you would rather spend time on a book that helps you think critically about medicine in the media, skip this book and read anything by Steven Novella.
Also, this is a nitpick, but the audio book is infuriating to listen to because between every lecture the same pre-recorded disclaimer is played. It says this is not personal medical advice. Very important to have, but absolutely unnecessary to repeat. By the end of the book, I began to fear the end of each chapter because it meant I'd be forced to listen to that same dreary disclaimer I'd already heard a dozen times. Miserable. And totally unnecessary.
February 7, 2021
This is an excellent summary of how to read anything you read or hear that is providing you with health information so that you can judge the quality and relevance of that information. The author takes you through several different health topics and provides very specific things to think about in analyzing various articles on each of those topics. The tools are provided in your "skeptic's toolbox" are a series of excellent questions. How Strong is the evidence (e.g., # of people in the study; type of study--observational, case study, case-control, randomized clinical trial)? What is the source of the information (e.g., popular magazine, newspaper, scientific study, advertisement)? What is the salience (e.g., was the study on animals, young children, men, etc.) --you want to make sure the results apply to you. Do they present different Sides--what are the disadvantages/weaknesses of the study as well as the advantages/strengths? And what is the Subject of the study--(e.g., is the study looking directly at what you are interested in or at something that is potentially related to it). He is very clear and has excellent examples. Everyone should read this book.
February 24, 2021
И не стыдно ему читать более двадцати лекций в одном стиле.
Берем газетную публикацию типа "как жить вечно" или "витамин С излечивает от гриппа" и применяет к каждой свои "шесть принципов". Примерно о том, что надо понять достоверность источника, заинтересованность издательства что-то вам продать и так далее.
По сути обычный здравый смысл.
Вы реально этого не делаете и верите всем газетным публикациям?
Причем по всем затронутым им темам этот лектор не потрудился глубоко вникнуть в вопрос - по сути он ничего не говорит кроме того, что и так очевидно любому, кто прочитал бы этот текст.
Совершенно бессмысленное и не интересное пережевывание информации.
Берем газетную публикацию типа "как жить вечно" или "витамин С излечивает от гриппа" и применяет к каждой свои "шесть принципов". Примерно о том, что надо понять достоверность источника, заинтересованность издательства что-то вам продать и так далее.
По сути обычный здравый смысл.
Вы реально этого не делаете и верите всем газетным публикациям?
Причем по всем затронутым им темам этот лектор не потрудился глубоко вникнуть в вопрос - по сути он ничего не говорит кроме того, что и так очевидно любому, кто прочитал бы этот текст.
Совершенно бессмысленное и не интересное пережевывание информации.
February 18, 2021
I really like the approaches book and the thoroughness. I was surprised, however, that while he was willing to suggest vitamins I need more research into whether or not they have any effects, but was not willing to make the same statement about GMOs. I was also greatly disappointed that the 2003 parachute study was not included in this book. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
October 28, 2022
He made many valid points about how data is interpreted and how data can be manipulated to support whatever message the media wants us to believe. Over all it was interesting but a little boring at a time.
Narration was more of a chat rather reading, i didnt like that at all.
Narration was more of a chat rather reading, i didnt like that at all.
February 18, 2025
This was well put together with excellent examples and good common sense stuff. I think the ability to read something skeptically (critically) is much needed in general, but especially these days it seems. I enjoyed the actionable lessons and honed some concepts for fact checking, statistics, headline/marketing tricks, poor science, and etc.
January 30, 2021
Great read. You can't just believe in science. You also have to be able to understand its limitations -- otherwise, it can be used against you.
February 6, 2021
Essential listening in the Information Age. Great overview of the skills necessary to read health news and media critically and skeptically.
March 18, 2021
Good advice on how to ingest new knowledge or research.
Reader did a great job, the adventure libing we strange in parts though. Maybe it was read by the author and I’ve forgotten that knowledge.
Reader did a great job, the adventure libing we strange in parts though. Maybe it was read by the author and I’ve forgotten that knowledge.
January 9, 2023
Excellent course on critical thinking with relevant health examples. Thanks again Dr. Benaroch.
August 4, 2023
Covering how the statistics and scientific research is presented and mainly, provides the guide to logical reasoning.
July 26, 2024
The book talks about useful media literacy skills, especially when it comes to medical and scientific research
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews