Dr. Sanjay Gupta's rather short memory

About a week ago, I laid a bit of the ol' Orac-style ultra-snarkiness on CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta for having done an embarrassingly credulous interview with two of Oprah's minions who participated in the atrocity that was Oprah's episode about faith healer John of God. One of the most disappointing things about Dr. Gupta's interview is that he seemed fairly clueless about John of God's "forceps in the nose" trick. Well, while I happened to be perusing incoming links last night, I came across the very good Skepdic article on John of God. Honored that Orac would be mentioned in such a fine, well-established skeptical resource, I looked over the entry again and noted that Robert Carroll had added to his original article. More fascinating was that Carroll had apparently dug up evidence from an old report that Dr. Gupta did that shows that he should have known about the trickery:

Yes, it's Dr. Gupta reporting on the "human blockhead" trick and explaining why it's anatomically possible to stick rather long objects into your nose without injuring yourself--if you know what you're doing, of course. He even demonstrated it on himself, albeit with a Q-Tip rather than an actual nail, probably a wise thing if he wanted to avoid accidentally perforating his nasopharynx. Be that as it may, apparently Dr. Gupta's memory is rather short. It wouldn't have taken much for him in his interview with Susan Casey and Dr. Jeff Rediger about John of God and Oprah Winfrey's episode about him to point out that the "forceps in the nose" trick is nothing more than a variation on the blockhead trick. He could have even shown a clip from this old report and asked Casey and Rediger what they say about it.

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I know it's not much, but I have sent him a few tweets asking if he'll respond to any of this. Nothing from him. I doubt he's really running his own twitter account.

By highnumber (not verified) on 03 Jan 2011 #permalink

I think the most reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that Dr. Gupta stuck something a little too long and a little too pointy in his nose and has suffered some memory loss because of it.

By The Gregarious… (not verified) on 03 Jan 2011 #permalink

Orac, bored?
I am starting to think I figured out your fascination with Gupta. I thought you were jealous of Redinger, given his superior education, in fact, it is Gupta. Did you two go to school together? Both, UM. Regardless, did you actually watch the Gupta segment before posting this? He said about the forceps in the nose "this is done all the time. I mean you can put a nasogastric tube down the nose, and the sinuses are large." That didn't do it for you? I guess you know what he really meant?
In order to be "adequately" skeptical, should he have paid homage to the wildly jealous Orac first? By the way, why do you refer to yourself in the third person?

By Jeremy Poiven (not verified) on 04 Jan 2011 #permalink

James Randi does a fairly high quality debunking of JoG.
I had hints from Jeremey's previous comments that he has it in for Randi too. apparently Randi hasn't enough scientific credentials to comment on a common or garden variety charlatan.

I thought you were jealous of Redinger, given his superior education

Rediger's gullibility does not speak well for his "superior" Harvard education. Given that Orac's critical thinking skills are far superior to Rediger's, I doubt that Orac is jealous of Rediger.

I think Jeremy Poivan has ambitions of becoming the next John Kwok.

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 04 Jan 2011 #permalink

@6,
Oh no, do not say that. I do not want to know who he is friends with, who went to school with him, and all of that clinginess.

I really don't care about your "musings" about anyone. I wish you would answer my question. What would Gupta say regarding "forceps in the nose" that would have satisfied your skeptic scale?

By Jeremy Poiven (not verified) on 04 Jan 2011 #permalink

For someone who really doesn't care, you comment about it an awful lot.

I doubt that Dr. G suffered any lapse of memory - he just knows better than to cross an AO (Agent of Oprah).

derp derp derp derp derp

By Jeremy Poiven (not verified) on 04 Jan 2011 #permalink

What a very cogent post from a Gupta fanboy.

I think skeptics should protest Oprah, stand outside her venues with picket signs. Is there any way of doing that, or otherwise making her (or the news media) take notice of us?

Chris @13 - you're just jealous of Jeremy's superior Harvard education :)

By Militant Agnostic (not verified) on 04 Jan 2011 #permalink

"Harvard - the Michigan of the East" -- sweatshirt caption seen frequently in Ann Arbor.