Bad Science

This excellent book written by the intelligent and entertaining doctor and health communicator Ben Goldacre is a must read for anyone who has an opinion about any health issue you've seen, heard or read about in the media. Although written in the context of the UK, its lessons and advice apply to anyone anywhere.

Covering everything from CAM (including chiropractic and homeopathy) to vaccinations to self-proclaimed "TV professors" (like Gillian McKeith) to the pros & cons of the pharmaceutical industry, the author shows the reader both sides of the story, shows the evidence, and explains the problems. But these are not just his proclamations on the issues: he points to scientific papers, additional resources, metastudies, and sites like the brilliant Cochrane Collaboration. While some of it is about correcting the egregious falsehoods proclaimed by journalists and snake oil peddlers, it is mostly about arming the reader with the tools to determine for yourself whether a topic or a position is as described or worth further investigation. Critical thinking, logic and skepticism... skills that everyone needs, but most are lacking.

Everyone should read this book.

Kindle note: I bought the Amazon Kindle version of this book. While it has all the expected footnotes and endnotes linked nicely, the text makes frequent references to graphs, tables, diagrams and images that do not appear in the Kindle version. This is not a shortcoming of the Kindle or ebook format (I've converted a number of ebooks I already own into Kindle format, complete with images, graphs, etc) -- this is simply laziness on the part of the publisher. You might want to consider this before buying any Kindle ebook that may contain non-text items.

Update: This ebook has been updated since my initial review in 2010 and the previously mentioned Kindle formatting shortcomings have been resolved.