Viral BS, Seema Yasmin
Viral BS, Seema Yasmin
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Viral BS
Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them

Author: Seema Yasmin

Narrator: Seema Yasmin

Unabridged: 9 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/13/2021


Synopsis

Dissecting the biggest medical myths and pseudoscience, Viral BS explores how misinformation can spread faster than microbes.

Can your zip code predict when you will die? Will testosterone supplements boost your libido? Should you space out childhood vaccines? Does talcum powder cause cancer? Why do some doctors recommend e-cigarettes while other doctors recommend you stay away from them? Health information—and misinformation—is all around us, and it can be hard to separate the two. A long history of unethical medical experiments and medical mistakes, along with a host of celebrities spewing anti-science beliefs, has left many wary of science and the scientists who say they should be trusted. How do we stay sane while unraveling the knots of fact and fiction to find out what we should really be concerned about, and what we can laugh off?

In Viral BS, journalist, doctor, professor, and CDC-trained disease detective Seema Yasmin, driven by a need to set the record straight, dissects some of the most widely circulating medical myths and pseudoscience. Exploring how epidemics of misinformation can spread faster than microbes, Dr. Yasmin asks why bad science is sometimes more believable and contagious than the facts. Each chapter covers a specific myth, whether it has endured for many years or hit the headlines more recently.

About Seema Yasmin

Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award–winning journalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, medical doctor, professor, and poet. She attended medical school at Cambridge University and worked as a disease detective for the US federal government’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. She currently teaches storytelling at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is a regular contributor to CNN, Self, and Scientific American, among others.


Reviews

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers. Viral BS is a book about medical myths and if they're true or not and why we fall for them. I didn't enjoy this book as much as I hoped and expected a little more from it. Dr Seema......more

Viral BS is fun, fast and full of debunking! Covering 46 fallacies, from “Is there lead in your lipstick?” to “Can a pill make racists less racist?”, each chapter is just a few pages long, making this great for a coffee table pick-up-and-read-a-bit, or for those with short attention spans brought on......more

There is a good case for saying this book is the right book for the wrong time. The author, if she's still lecturing in science journalism, and telling the world about medical myths, will never have been busier than in 2020 and in 2021. And yet the coronasniffles gets about one mention in these page......more