Science-Based Medicine

I strongly disagree with your recommendations for Campbell and Robbins (and I assume you mean John Robbins, not Tim Robbins). Like most nutritionists, they do agree on eliminating refined carbohydrates and processed foods from your diet. But these two specifically argue that saturated fats are unhealthy and low-fat diets are optimal, the exact opposite of the thesis of the study and article.

Robbins is a dietary extremist and his books make Quackwatch's list of non-recommended books that "promote misinformation, espouse unscientific theories, and/or contain unsubstantiated advice" [1]. The National Council Against Health Fraud even had a critical blurb towards his television program about Diet For a New America in their '91 newsletter [2].

While I find Campbell's actual research in the china studies important, the book infers much more than the studies showed, not to mention a lack of supporting follow-up studies that control for the most common criticisms (genetics, rates of exercise, comparisons with mostly meat-eating populations without diseases of civilization, etc.). I have a real issue with taking descriptive information from data and turning it into prescriptive advice before accumulating sound evidence. For a good critique, the always awesome SkepDoc Harriet Hall posted a review on the Science-Based Medicine blog (which I highly recommend) [3], although the comments get bogged down about her linking to a similar criticism by the Weston Price foundation.

Oddly…

My bad, I thought all the articles on SBM were written by the same person. In any event, I stand by my claim that a lot of the articles on the site are crap. Just look at the article you referenced, which says that calling out pharma industry shills is just a "means of smearing those [...] who have the temerity to ask them to provide scientific studies to back up their assertions."

And yet if you look at their article on the efficacy of antidepressants, the author says the meta-study showing that antidepressants are no better than placebos for mild and moderate depression is invalid because it excluded studies where the researchers wouldn't provide their data:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3722#more-3722

Double standard much? The author also criticizes the decision not to include studies that excluded placebo responders. WTF? The whole point of the study was to compare the effectiveness of antidepressants to placebos.

How is it that SBM can advocate the use of antidepressants despite the lack of evidence of efficacy and the tons of evidence of dangerous side effects, whereas about medical marijuana they say that, "it’s hard to envision any situation in which prescribing marijuana would be ethical."

I've read dozens of articles from that site, and the scientific rigor of their thinking seems to be limited at best.

> Is it even realistic for an average joe to look into it in their free time, and come to a useful conslusion in a realistic timeframe, or is everything so complicated nowadays that it's not worth it?

In my personal opinion, no it isn’t. I would say that it would be useful to look into how scientific and medical research is conducted, how peer review works, etc. and you will see the incredible complexity and difficulty of building up a medical theory. I’d also look at skeptic explanations of how pseudoscience uses that complexity to push things that just aren’t true. Without a deep understanding of topic, and all the underlying scientific method, you are far more likely to come to a wrong conclusion than a correct one. Finding good scientific communicators, I’ve found, is the best way to get good information. People that do have the requisite knowledge and that will contextualize the sensational and just bad reporting of science and medicine. I would suggest Science Based Medicine [1] and Heathcare Triage [2] as a start.

[1] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/user/thehealthcaretriage

Very mixed bag of the sources, several that look less than scientifically viable at a first glance (not judging whether they may have value along other dimensions). Others look more thorough/mainstream, like the very first one [0]. It would be interesting if someone who knows something about the field could evaluate how much this is worth paying attention to.

[0] https://mpkb.org/home/publications/heil_immunologic_2016

EDIT: Wait, is this a trolling/hoax paper? 'A case series of 64 patient-reported outcomes subsequent to use of a silver-threaded cap designed to protect the brain and brain stem from microwave Electrosmog resulted in 90 % reporting "definite" or "strong" changes in their disease symptoms.'

I should have checked first, this is posted on the author's own page. Here's someone assessing his ideas:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-marshal-protocol/

People had pointed out how stupid his proposal was when he made it, and he ignored them completely. At that point, he was just a crank (https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/jlockdowns/). The debate was never censored: he was allowed to communicate with policy makers if he had any evidence to support his proposal. What was censored (or rather, not promoted to people who weren't his followers) was his wild rants to fellow Christian libertarians who believe the invisible hand of the free market is the gentle hand of the baby Jesus himself, which we should not shackle with regulations.

Slowing some children's development (while drastically accelerating others' because they were tutored by their parents who had to stay at home with them) is not even on the same scale as mass deaths and people dying outside hospitals due to lack of capacity.

“As far as I know, no one has ever demonstrated that Lyme spirochetes survive a course of standard antibiotics”

QFT.

While PTLDS is a real thing (being long-term sequelae to the original Lyme infection), be very wary of anything labeled “chronic lyme”, which is a common code-word concoction of “Lyme-literate” MDs/DOs, naturopaths, and other quacks for peddling their nostrums (including permanent courses of antibiotics; a great way to make anyone sick as a dog).

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/?s=lyme

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Bonus irony: GSK actually created a successful vaccine against Lyme 30 years ago:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/7/17314716/lyme-disease-vaccine-history-effectiveness

No prizes for guessing who destroyed that.