What inspires me…

Happy New year!

The right question might not be what, but who inspires me. Yesterday I read an article in the Globe and Mail about an academic in Alberta Canada who is bothered about the use of pseudoscience and misinformation to promote and sell health and wellness products and trends.

Professor Caulfield has written a few books focusing on celebrities who unscrupulously make profit by selling well-marketed products promising youth, health and happiness based on pseudoscience.

I Googled Caulfield and found so much information and many professionals who perceive it as more than just important to speak up about these trends. They feel they must, as to be silent might be perceived as agreeing with these practices of pseudoscience

One reason why so many health professionals are not speaking up is that they do not want to hurt people’s feelings who truly believe in the promises and who might already buy the products. Other reasons might be that speaking up and finding a platform exposes you to harsh criticism.

Medical doctors and researchers in the health care industry are busy, so those who speak up must be the passionate ones among us, who feel it is their duty to use the many years of studying science to educate others beyond doing their daily full-time job and that is a lot to ask for.

For that reason, websites hosted by skeptics are often disappearing after a few years as these are not-for-profit but are time consuming and not all have the stamina nor the thick skin required to cope with being harassed by trolls.

Therefore, it is great that Netflix, has been showing Caulfield’s documentary TV series, “A User’s Guide to Cheating Death”. The purpose of the series is to educate, but also to understand how come so many people fall for products promoted by, for instance Goop. By being respectful as much as possible, the series might have a chance to encourage critical thinking.

Please also check out the informative posts by Dr. Jen Gunter, an OB/GYN, blogger on WordPress.

Take care :)!

Elisabeth