Skip to main content
Events •

Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health

Public health researcher Dr. Martin Makary claims in his new book, Blind Spots, that “the pandemic was not a one-off in how the medical establishment works. In fact, it was more the norm than the exception.”

Dr. Makary says that dogma, groupthink, and the suppression of scientific debate describe the culture of the modern medical establishment. He provides examples of public health recommendations and medical practices that persist despite lacking evidence or being shown to be harmful. Dr. Makary discusses weaknesses of the peer-review process for publishing scientific articles, alleging government research grants and the preferred narratives of “medical elites” affect the nature and quality of medical research. How did the medical establishment get this broken? Did public policy break it? What policy reforms can repair it? Please join us in discussing the book and its implications with the author.

Lunch to follow.

Additional Resources

Blind Spots book cover
Featured Book

Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health

More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they’re three years old. Getting the science perfectly backward, triggering intolerance with lack of early exposure, the US now leads the world in peanut allergies-and this misinformation is still rearing its head today.

Featuring
Martin A. Makary headshot
Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH

Professor of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Professor of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

David A. Hyman

Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law and Policy, Georgetown University Law Center; Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute