New ‘Science Based Medicine’ blog

A new blog on science/evidence based medicine caught my eye. It is written mostly, if not completely, by practicing doctors - most of them seem to be academic researchers. They plan to have a daily entry reviewing the evidence for some medical topic or debunking a medical modality that is not supported by scientific evidence. As someone who cares about science and health, but who is not well-versed in medicine, a blog such as this can be useful in hearing expert opinion on which advertised claims are based on solid evidence and which are not. Thus far, the blog’s authors have been highly critical of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). And deservedly so! They do a really great job at pointing out the logical fallacies of and lack/distortion of evidence for CAM. My primary complaint is that the tirades against, say, homeopathy can become a bit tiresome and redundant. I can understand that ‘doctors’ using water as a treatment (which is what homeopathy is) can be infuriating, but do we need a weekly update on it? I hope that eventually they will focus more on recent medical claims close to the border of acceptance. That is, potentially beneficial medicine that has only recently been studied, but maybe isn’t quite there in terms of scientific evidence. Such posts could highlights medicine that is likely to be important in the near future and maybe help sort out hype from reality. In any case, I look forward to some insightful analysis of medical science.