A Review of False Positive (The New England Journal of Medicine under a microscope).

By Armando Simon

Dalrymple had a neat idea. Being a medical doctor, and skeptical of social trends that are forcibly propagated, he noticed some peculiarities in The New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most important medical journals, and he decided to closely examine all the papers for a given year, week by week, with the caveat that most doctors are so snowed under by work that they can’t usually do the same, but just skip to the papers’ conclusions.

The topics, naturally, range over a wide variety of topics, from obesity to addiction to cancer to Ebola to euthanasia, etc. He points out that occasionally there are questionable statistical analysis but, more importantly, there are assumptions made in some papers that originate from the force-feeding society with Politically Correct ideology. “Political Correctness is like a poison gas that can seep into the most unlikely places.”

The people who will benefit most from this book will be, of course, physicians and nurses. Yet, it is also of benefit to anyone who is involved in any of the sciences. The book also has important information for people with illnesses; I particular found the information about prostate to be eye-opening and contrary to what I had been led to believe.  And, by the way, the medical terminology is held down to a minimum and explained for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with them. His wry humor pops up from time to time.

In truth, the reason I picked up this book was because of schadenfreude. Whereas in the NEJM the PC is subtle, but unmistakable, in my own field, psychology, the PC ideology is in your face. There is no attempt at finesse or in hiding it.