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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

December 18, 2013
Rats. Everyone's blogging about all the studies showing (as if it needed to be shown yet again) that vitamin supplementation is not necessary for most people, nor does it decrease the risk of heart disease or cancer, and I can't, at least not yet. Why not? Because my friggin' university doesn't…
December 17, 2013
Whoa. How did I miss this? Maybe it was all the other stuff going on last week, such as the Sarah Hershberger case, multiple updates on Stanislaw Burzynski, and Katie Couric's sort-of apology about her awful segment on HPV vaccines. So much stuff was going on that I forgot that December 11 was my…
December 16, 2013
These days, Dr. Oz seems to stand for everything I oppose in medicine: Fear mongering, quackery, making claims that he can't back up with science, and, of course, filthy lucre. On second thought, I'm not against filthy lucre per se. In fact, I wouldn't mind having some of it myself. However, I also…
December 13, 2013
Thanks, Daily Kos. Well, not really. You'll see why in a minute, but first here's the background. There's a general impression out there that the political right is associated with the antiscience that includes anthropogenic global warming denialism, denial of evolution, and denial of aspects of…
December 11, 2013
The central mystery of Stanislaw Burzynski is how he keeps managing, no matter what is thrown at him by state and federal medical authorities, to keep on treating patients with deadly cancers. He's like the Energizer Bunny; he just keeps going and going and going and going. Or maybe he's like the…
December 10, 2013
Vaccines against the human papilloma virus (HPV), such as Gardasil and Cervarix, seem to have a strange power over people who are otherwise reasonable about science and vaccines. For some reason, HPV vaccines seem to have an uncanny ability to turn such people into raging antivaccinationists almost…
December 9, 2013
Three weeks ago, USA TODAY published an expose of the Burzynski Clinic by Liz Szabo that was devastating in its scope and detail. Early on, Stanislaw Burzynski and his minions tried to do some damage control, with hilarious results given how inept and unconvincing his excuses were for all the…
December 8, 2013
I am afraid. I am afraid that the Amish girl with cancer whose parents' battle to treat her with "natural" therapy instead of effective science-based chemotherapy has made international news, is doomed. It might take longer than doctors have estimated, but it seems inevitable now. I will explain.…
December 6, 2013
Well, wouldn't you know it? Mike Adams thinks he's an actual scientist! Regular readers are all too familiar with Mike Adams, a.k.a. The Health Ranger, arguably the most quacktastic site on the Internet. Sure, Joe Mercola is probably the most trafficked quackery site on the Internet, but, being…
December 4, 2013
I'm not really happy to have to write this post, but a blogger's got to do what a blogger's got to do. The reason is that Katie Couric has done something requires—nay, demands—a heapin' helpin' of Orac's characteristic Respectful Insolence. Why should I give the proverbial rodent's posterior about…
December 4, 2013
As hard as it is to believe, I've been blogging nearly nine years. Indeed, my nine-year anniversary is coming up in just over a week. It's been almost a decade! Early on during near-decade that I've been laying down bits of Insolence, Respectful, and Not-So-Respectful, I developed an interest in…
December 3, 2013
I don't normally ask you, my readers for much, if anything, other than to read and for the subset of you who like to be active in the comments to have at it and, if so inclined, to cover my back by swatting down the trolls, quacks, and antivaccinationists who occasionally show up to infest the…
December 1, 2013
It figures. Whenever there's a holiday or a break where I'm not paying as much attention to the blog as usual, something always seems to happen regarding a story I'm interested and have been blogging about. Remember Sarah Hershberger? She's 11 year old Amish girl who developed lymphoblastic…
November 29, 2013
Well, Thanksgiving's over, and the orgy of consumerism known as Black Friday is in full swing. Personally, I have to work, at least part of the day, and I don't go anywhere near the stores on Black Friday anyway. I haven't for years. So we might as well briefly discuss a bit of science today. It…
November 27, 2013
A man on TV is selling me a miracle cure that will keep me young forever. It’s called Androgel…for treating something called Low T, a pharmaceutical company–recognized condition affecting millions of men with low testosterone, previously known as getting older. —The Colbert Report, December 2012…
November 26, 2013
As I noted a few days ago, the antivaccine fringe suffered a major setback in the House of Representatives when Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, canceled a previously promised hearing about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,…
November 25, 2013
Acupuncture is quackery. This cannot be repeated often enough, and, in fact, over the last several months I've developed a tendency to start all my posts on acupuncture by making sure to remind everyone that it is quackery. The reasons are many-fold. For one thing, the concepts behind acupuncture…
November 22, 2013
I know I have readers who are neuroscientists. However, do I have readers who are currently attending the 4th Quadrennial Meeting of the Society of Neuro-Oncology in San Francisco going on this weekend? Why do I ask? Given the Regular readers might suspect that it has to do something with a man who…
November 21, 2013
Well, it's done. The server migration should be finished. I was out and about last night giving a talk; so I'll only have time for a relatively brief post (for me, at least). Once again, things happen while I'm otherwise...indisposed. This time around, it's something that warms the cockles of what…
November 19, 2013
And now for something completely different. Well, not exactly. It's just that I have an announcement to make that is for your benefit. Our (usually) benevolent overlords have informed us that they are going to be moving ScienceBlogs over to a new server beginning sometime after midnight tonight:…
November 19, 2013
While I've been all tied up paying attention to the developments in the Stanislaw Burzynski case, it figures that President Obama would go and do something like nominating the next Surgeon General. Normally, this is not such a big deal, because there really hasn't been a Surgeon General who has…
November 18, 2013
I was very pleased last Friday, very pleased indeed. Given the normal subject matter of this blog, in which we face a seemingly unrelenting infiltration of pseudoscience and quackery into even the most hallowed halls of academic medicine, against which we seem to be fighting a mostly losing battle…
November 15, 2013
I've made no secret of how much I despise Stanislaw Burzynski, the self-proclaimed cancer doctor and medical researcher who has been treating patients with an unproven, unapproved chemotherapeutic agent since 1977, seemingly slithering around, under, over, and past all attempts to investigate him…
November 14, 2013
A couple of weeks ago, I noted a new trend among the antivaccine glitterati, or maybe I should refer to it as a new trope. That particular trope is to refer to anyone who has the temerity to stand up for science, support vaccines, and criticize antivaccinationists like the crew at the antivaccine…
November 13, 2013
I had a busy time yesterday and last night and was just too tired to blog seriously last night. So I'm afraid there's no epic Orac-ian screed/rant/brilliance/insightful analysis today. (Fear not. I expect something worth tearing into later this week, however.) So, in the absence of new Insolent…
November 12, 2013
Last week, everyone's favorite woo-meister, the man whose woo is so strong that I even coined a term for it way back in the early mists of time (at least as far as this blog is concerned), was woo-fully whining about all those allegedly nasty skeptics on Wikipedia. Yes, Deepak Chopra was clutching…
November 10, 2013
It's been a while since I've written about Stanislaw Burzynski, the Houston cancer doctor who inexplicably has been permitted to continue to administer an unproven cancer treatment to children with deadly brain cancers for nearly 37 years now. Beginning in 1977, when he left Baylor College of…
November 10, 2013
Never let it be said that Orac can't match Mark Crislip in shameless promotion. The world might indeed need more Mark Crislip™, but I like to think that it needs a bit more of his friends, too. So, in that spirit, here are the videos, recently released by the James Randi Educational Foundation, of…
November 8, 2013
The other day, I pointed out that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was following in the footsteps of the former chair of the committee, likely the quackiest, most antivaccine Congressman who ever served in the House of Representatives. Rep.…
November 7, 2013
About a year ago, I became aware of the latest celebrity antivaccinationist with a penchant for saying truly stupid things and thus making an even bigger fool of himself than he usually does. I'm referring to Rob "makin' copies" Schneider, who most recently has been making waves for narrating a…