https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/more-...ter-health
INTRO: This chart from Our World in Data shows that the U.S. (orange dot far right) spends far more than any other country on health care and yet is far from number one in life expectancy.
Two statistics capture the ills of American medicine: The U.S. ranks #1, by a long shot, in per-capita spending on health care. And yet the U.S. ranks #55 in life expectancy, just below Albania and Panama.
Clearly, more medicine does not result in better health. Far from it. Most treatments don’t work very well, and many do more harm than good. So philosopher of science Jacob Stegenga argues in Medical Nihilism, a dry, data-dense, devastating critique of medicine and medical research.
We should “have little confidence in medical interventions,” Stegenga writes, and resort to them much more sparingly. This is the perspective that Stegenga calls medical nihilism. What follows is an updated version of my 2019 review of Stegenga’s book... (MORE - details)
INTRO: This chart from Our World in Data shows that the U.S. (orange dot far right) spends far more than any other country on health care and yet is far from number one in life expectancy.
Two statistics capture the ills of American medicine: The U.S. ranks #1, by a long shot, in per-capita spending on health care. And yet the U.S. ranks #55 in life expectancy, just below Albania and Panama.
Clearly, more medicine does not result in better health. Far from it. Most treatments don’t work very well, and many do more harm than good. So philosopher of science Jacob Stegenga argues in Medical Nihilism, a dry, data-dense, devastating critique of medicine and medical research.
We should “have little confidence in medical interventions,” Stegenga writes, and resort to them much more sparingly. This is the perspective that Stegenga calls medical nihilism. What follows is an updated version of my 2019 review of Stegenga’s book... (MORE - details)