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David Gorski

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski. That Orac has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 30 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: oracknows@gmail.com

Posts by this author

August 30, 2017
Yesterday I discussed a highly unethical clinical trial of a new herpes vaccine, based on what appears to be questionable science but backed by über-Libertarian Peter Thiel. The reason the trial is so unethical is because Rational Vaccines, the company that developed the herpes vaccine and is…
August 29, 2017
I've caught a fair amount of flak over my opposition to so-called "right-to-try" laws. Right-to-try laws have proliferated throughout the US like so much kudzu over the last three and a half years, to the point where 37 states now have some version of these profoundly anti-patient laws on the books…
August 27, 2017
In the early 1980s in the wake of reports, publicized by a news report and later a book by Harris Coulter and Barbara Loe Fisher (DPT: A Shot in the Dark), that the whole cell DPT vaccine was linked to encephalitis and brain damage, a flood of product liability lawsuits was on the verge of bringing…
August 24, 2017
Acupuncture is nothing more than a theatrical placebo. I wish I could take credit for the term "theatrical placebo" to describe acupuncture, just as I wish I could take credit for coining the term "quackademic medicine" to describe the unfortunately increasing infiltration of quackery into academic…
August 23, 2017
I've written several posts about a tragic phenomenon in Minnesota. Specifically, there's been a major measles outbreak among the Somali immigrant community in the Minneapolis area, the largest group of Somali immigrants in the country. Actually, this outbreak is not the first outbreak among this…
August 21, 2017
Poor Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He went from admired environmental activist to reviled antivaccine campaigner so quickly. It began when he outed himself in 2005 with his infamous conspiracy mongering screed about thimerosal in Salon.com and Rolling Stone. Basically, RFK Jr. is a member of what we used…
August 20, 2017
Alternative medicine, by definition, consists of medicine that either has not been shown to work or has been shown not to work. To paraphrase an old adage yet again, medicine that has been shown to work with an acceptable risk-benefit ceases to be "alternative" and becomes simply "medicine." Unlike…
August 17, 2017
Before I get into the topic at hand, I want to explain why there was no post yesterday. Some of you on Facebook might have seen my post about why, but basically, we lost power last night. We're still without power. In fact, the only reason I can write this is because I'm staying at my parents'…
August 16, 2017
Here we go again. Antivaxers don't like vaccines. This, we know. They blame them for everything from autism to autoimmune diseases to diabetes to sudden infant death syndrome. They even sometimes claim that shaken baby syndrome is a "misdiagnosis" for vaccine injury. However, there are two vaccines…
August 14, 2017
Someone yesterday was not very happy with my attitude towards naturopaths, as evidenced in my post yesterday about the death of a young woman named Jade Erick due to intravenous infusion of curcumin by—you guessed it—a naturopath. Amusingly, that someone going by the 'nym of JR said that he or she…
August 13, 2017
Kim Kelly, ND (Not A Doctor). He prescribed the dose of intravenous turmeric that killed Jade Erick. Finally, a mystery has been solved. Nearly five months ago, a 30 year old woman named Jade Erick suffered a cardiac arrest, most likely due to anaphylactic shock, during the infusion of…
August 11, 2017
One of the most important responsibilities pediatricians have to assure the health of the children they take care of is to make sure they are vaccinated. Over the last 100 years, childhood mortality has plummeted such that it is no longer common to lose a child (or children) to infectious disease.…
August 9, 2017
Over the years, I've frequently contemplated just where many of the ideas that underlie alternative medicine in general come from. Certainly, I'm not the first to have thought of this by any stretch of the imagination, but over the last 13 years, I've become convinced that it is a fear of bodily "…
August 9, 2017
One of the reasons I'm so passionate about pushing back against antivaccine pseudoscience is because I view it as an extreme threat to public health, particularly the health of children. I'm a history buff. I study history. I know what child mortality was like before vaccines. I'm also a scientist…
August 8, 2017
Yesterday was a busy day for a number of reasons. I thought of skipping it, but I couldn't resist taking notice of one particularly hilarious bit that I found on what is perhaps the wretchedest of all the wretched hives of scum and quackery on the Internet, NaturalNews.com. There, yesterday, on a…
August 6, 2017
One of the gratifying things about having been blogging so long—nearly 13 years now!—is that you start to see stories that you wrote about a long time ago resurface, allowing you to see the resolution. For instance, I've not infrequently written about people who, mistakenly believing the…
August 3, 2017
The moment I have feared ever since Republicans took control of all three branches of Congress last fall has come one step closer to reality. Actually, it's merely one of many. occurrences that I have feared, given that Donald Trump has been our President for over six months. Although you won't…
August 2, 2017
I wasn't sure if I should do this post, mainly because I could find so little information to elaborate on a bit of information that I discovered. Then I thought about it a bit more. Perhaps my not being able to find out will illustrate my point better than a detailed progress report on a woman whom…
July 31, 2017
Everything old is new again, or so it always seems with alternative medicine. Before I explain what I'm talking about a bit more, let me just preface my remarks with an explanation for why there was no post tomorrow. I realize that most people probably don't care that much if I miss a day or two,…
July 27, 2017
It's been over a month now since I started paying real attention to that wretched celebrity hive of scum and quackery founded by Gwyneth Paltrow known as Goop. It was a long time coming, and I feel a bit guilty for not really paying much attention to the "wellness," "lifestyle," and, of course,…
July 26, 2017
One of the most common tropes used by antivaxers is to attack herd immunity as not being real. Herd immunity, or as its sometimes called, community immunity, is a name for a phenomenon in which in a population with high levels of immunity to a disease members susceptible to the disease are…
July 24, 2017
As a skeptic, I can't help but taking an interest in conspiracy theories. The reason, of course, is because behind virtually every commonly accepted pseudoscientific and antiscience ideas there is conspiracy theory. For instance, in the case of the antivaccine movement, the conspiracy theory is…
July 23, 2017
Over the last two or three weeks, you might have noticed a disturbance in the alternative medicine force. Unlike disturbances in the Force in Star Wars movies (which usually result from horrors like the obliteration of millions of lives on Alderaan), this was a joyous, celebratory disturbance in…
July 20, 2017
One of the problems we as skeptics and advocates for science-based medicine face is that quackery and pseudoscience are legion. They are everywhere. Worse, in many cases, they can be a good business model. For example, back when Oprah Winfrey was peddling The Secret, the magical mystical belief…
July 19, 2017
I've written quite a few times about stem cell quackery. Although I had taken an interest in dubious stem cell treatments before, because I live in the Detroit area, the stories from a couple of years ago about hockey great Gordie Howe's stem cell treatment for his stroke, how it was credulously…
July 19, 2017
As you can see, there's no new post for today. I think you'll forgive me if you know the reason. Basically, back in March, there were a number of storms, and we lost power for several days, followed by its going on and off a couple of times before finally being restored for good. Even though I have…
July 17, 2017
There's a good rule of thumb about headlines (other than Betteridge's Law of Headlines) that I use when perusing articles. It's particularly useful for evaluating headlines about medical and science stories. Basically, if a headline says something like, "everything you know about X is/might be/…
July 17, 2017
Here we go again. It's been a while since I've written about the cruel sham that is known as "right to try." Anyone who's been reading this blog a while (or even read the first sentence of this paragraph) knows that I'm not a fan of right-to-try laws. Basically such laws, which have sprung up like…
July 13, 2017
You know how you know when you've been effective deconstructing quackery or antivaccine pseudoscience? It's when quacks and pseudoscientists strike back. It's when they attack you. As much as Mike Adams' near daily tirades against me last year caused problems and poisoned my Google reputation (…
July 12, 2017
I had a bit of a rough day yesterday. By the time I was done with work, I was just too tired to write my usual length Insolence. I was, however, fortunate enough to see something that reinforces something I wrote last week. Last friday I discussed the politicization of vaccine policy that has been…