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A review by 10_4tina
Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health by Marty Makary
challenging
informative
fast-paced
4.25
So interesting and totally up my alley.
Makary looked at a number of recommendations in medicine that originated and/or persisted in society as a result of group think and minimally examining and/or challenging blind spots. He also talked about the limitations to speaking out against commonly accepted beliefs and the challenges that poses as well. That portion was honestly the scariest part. There is so much control in healthcare companies, the American government, and funders of research that it is hard to avoid blind spots and even harder to course correct long-accepted errors.
Things I flagged for interest:
Ch 3:
We don't need AI, we just need I.
Ch 4:
Early peanut exposure resulted in an 86% reduction in peanut allergies by the time a child reached age 5
WIC excludes peanut butter, despite those qualifying for WIC are at a much higher risk of developing a peanut allergy, and thus stand to benefit the most from early introduction
Ch 11:
Ovarian cancer risk reduction through the removal of the fallopian tubes - also interesting that the procedure currently requires advance consent (after years of nonconsensual sterilization), but this is inconvenient as it is a potentially great add-on procedure if other abdominal surgery is needed
Ch 14:
It was wild to read about so many policies and pressures suppressing information from doctors (in an effort to reduce misinformation) - policies American doctors share with doctors in North Korea
Societies are defined by what speech they do not permit
Ch 15:
Research on cases of transgender children - clusters, not randomly in the population - many had underlying mental health disorders - clusters often included girls who binge on social media - this research challenged a gender-affirming view - if transgender was strictly biological, one would expect a more random distribution, not a social contagion
Makary looked at a number of recommendations in medicine that originated and/or persisted in society as a result of group think and minimally examining and/or challenging blind spots. He also talked about the limitations to speaking out against commonly accepted beliefs and the challenges that poses as well. That portion was honestly the scariest part. There is so much control in healthcare companies, the American government, and funders of research that it is hard to avoid blind spots and even harder to course correct long-accepted errors.
Things I flagged for interest:
Ch 3:
We don't need AI, we just need I.
Ch 4:
Early peanut exposure resulted in an 86% reduction in peanut allergies by the time a child reached age 5
WIC excludes peanut butter, despite those qualifying for WIC are at a much higher risk of developing a peanut allergy, and thus stand to benefit the most from early introduction
Ch 11:
Ovarian cancer risk reduction through the removal of the fallopian tubes - also interesting that the procedure currently requires advance consent (after years of nonconsensual sterilization), but this is inconvenient as it is a potentially great add-on procedure if other abdominal surgery is needed
Ch 14:
It was wild to read about so many policies and pressures suppressing information from doctors (in an effort to reduce misinformation) - policies American doctors share with doctors in North Korea
Societies are defined by what speech they do not permit
Ch 15:
Research on cases of transgender children - clusters, not randomly in the population - many had underlying mental health disorders - clusters often included girls who binge on social media - this research challenged a gender-affirming view - if transgender was strictly biological, one would expect a more random distribution, not a social contagion