David H. Gorski, MD, PhD
Founding Fellow
Board of Directors
Corporate Treasurer
Detroit, Michigan, USA
David H. Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS, is a prolific essayist and managing editor of Science-Based Medicine, a highly-respected blog that exposes non-scientific research and practices. For the last ten years, he has been a major voice — as himself and pseudonymously — for science-based medicine. In addition to being Treasurer and on the Board of Directors, Dr Gorski also serves the Institute for Science in Medicine as head of its childhood immunization committee.
Dr Gorski is a surgical oncologist at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute specializing in breast cancer surgery, where he also serves as Co-Director of the Alexander J. Walt Comprehensive Breast Center, surgical Co-Director of the Breast Multidisciplinary Team, Co-Leader of the Breast Cancer Biology Program, and the American College of Surgeons Committee on Cancer Liaison Physician, as well as Associate Professor of Surgery and member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology at Wayne State University. An NIH-funded investigator whose primary research interests include tumor angiogenesis and the role of glutamate receptors in promoting the growth and metastasis of breast cancer, Dr Gorski also runs an active research laboratory at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and has recently taken an active interest in the problems of breast cancer over-diagnosis and over-treatment.
[Disclaimer & Disclosure: Dr Gorski’s disclaimer and disclosure of potential conflicts of interest can be found here. Also at that link is a message for potential patients who may have encountered, through Google searches, attacks on Dr Gorski online by various supporters of pseudoscience.]
For all Science-Based Medicine essays by Dr Gorski: 2010, 2009, and 2008.
Selected Blogging:
- “Avastin and metastatic breast cancer: when science-based medicine collides with FDA regulation,” 30 Aug 2010.
- “Tai chi and fibromyalgia in the New England Journal of Medicine: an ‘alternative’ frame succeeds,” 25 Aug 2010.
- “Does peer review need fixing?” 23 Aug 2010.
- “ ‘Integrative oncology’: Trojan Horse, quackademic medicine, or both?” 16 Aug 2010.
- “Germ theory denialism: a major strain in ‘alt-med’ thought,” 9 Aug 2010.
- “Credulity about acupuncture infiltrates the New England Journal of Medicine,” 3 Aug 2010.
- “Hard science and medical school,” 2 Aug 2010.
- “NCCAM Director Dr. Josephine Briggs and the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians,” 2010 Jul 26.
- “Dr. Donald Berwick and ‘patient-centered’ medicine: letting the woo into the new health care law?” 2010 Jul 12.
- “Cancer Treatment Centers of America and “naturopathic oncology,” 2010 Jun 21.
- “The vaccine war,” 2010 Apr 29.
- “The complexity of cancer: a science-based view,” 2010 Apr 26.
- “Chemotherapy versus death from cancer,” 2010 Apr 19.
- “The continuum of surgical research in science-based medicine,” 2010 Apr 5.
- “The case of John Lykoudis and peptic ulcer disease revisited: crank or visionary?” 2010 Mar 29.
- “Is there a role for speculative journals like Medical Hypotheses in the scientific literature?” 2010 Mar 15.
- “The fall of Andrew Wakefield,” 2010 Feb 22.
- “The Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010: a long overdue correction to the DSHEA of 1994?” 2010 Feb 8.
- “On the ‘individualization’ of treatments in ‘alternative medicine’,” 2010 Jan 25.
- “Abortion and breast cancer: the manufactroversy that won’t die,” 2010 Jan 18.
- “The anti-vaccine movement strikes back against Dr. Paul Offit,” 2010 Jan 4.
- “The life cycle of translational research,” 2010 Jan 4.
- “The Institute for Science in Medicine enters the health care reform fray,” 2009 Nov 30.
- “Naturopaths and the anti-vaccine movement: hijacking the law in service of pseudoscience,” 2009 Nov 30.
- “The autism ‘biomed’ movement: uncontrolled and unethical experimentation on autistic children,” 2009 Nov 23
- “The USPSTF recommendations for breast cancer screening: not the final word,” 2009 Nov 18.
- “Cancer prevention: the forgotten stepchild of cancer research?” 2009 Nov 16.
- “Conflicts of interest in science-based medicine,” 2009 Nov 16.
- “Pseudo-expertise versus science-based medicine,” 2009 Nov 9.
- “The cancer screening kerfuffle erupts again: “rethinking” screening for breast and prostate cancer,” 2009 Nov 2.
- “When homeopaths attack medicine and physics,” 2009 Nov 1.
- “Suzanne Somers’ Knockout: dangerous misinformation about cancer,” 2009 Oct 26.
- “An epidemic of fear: the anti-vaccine movement’s war on science,” 2009 Oct 20.
- “Beware religious meddling in the latest version of health care reform,” 2009 Oct 19.
- “The ‘Iron Rule of Cancer’: the dangerous cancer quackery that is the ‘German New Medicine’,” 2009 Oct 5
- “Confusing correlation with causation,” 2009 Oct 3.
- “The price of anti-vaccine fanaticism: case histories,” 2009 Sep 28.
- “Bill Maher endorses cancer quackery,” 2009 Sep 27.
- “Crank ‘scientific’ conferences: a parody of science-based medicine that can deceive even reputable scientists and institutions,” 2009 Sep 21.
- “Report a doctor’s dubious practices, go to jail?,” 2009 Sep 20.
- “The Oprah-fication of medicine,” MedHelp, 2009 Jun 8.
- “Is Oprah Winfrey giving us bad medicine?” Special to The Star (Toronto), 2009 Jun 7.
Selected Appearances:
- “On the threat of pseudoscience” (with MB Shermer and B Goldacre), Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium on “Confronting pseudoscience: a call to action,” McGill University, 2010 Oct 18. [Webcast] [MP3]
In the News:
- “Age of Autism witch hunt,” by Steven Novella, Neurologica, 2010 Jun 21.
- “Bloggers coming to David Gorski’s defense,” Open Salon, 2010 Jun 21.
- “Most drug trial results analyzed by FDA hidden from view,” by Naseem Miller, The Center for Public Integrity, 2010 May 14.
- “Battlefield acupuncture: pseudoscience for wounded troops,” by Steven Salzberg, Forbes, 2010 Feb 15.
- “Skeptic of the year,” by Michael Rosch, The Gotham Skeptic, Official site of the New York City Skeptics, 2010 Jan 5.
- “Snake oil medicine,” by Lee Schneider, Huffington Post, 2009 Sep 30.
- “Controls for acupuncture studies are improving. Their results are not. How are peer reviewers reacting?” by David Munger, Seed Magazine, 2009 Sep 2.
- “Autism, vaccines, and The Oprah Effect,” by Susan Steinhardt, BioData Blogs, 2009 Jun 4.
- “Why does the vaccine/autism controversy live on?” by Chris Mooney, Discover Magazine, 2009 June.
- “Blogging doctors, rock on!” by Doug Bremner, Huffington Post, 2008 Sep 19.
The Online David Gorski:
