The Skeptical OB

I’ve long thought that lactivists were being deliberately obtuse about the assertion that Fed Is Best. They repeatedly claim, with no plausible justification, that Fed Is Best means routine supplementation with formula for all infants. I’ve recently revised my assessment. Maybe lactivists aren’t being obtuse; maybe they just don’t get it. There’s a critical difference […]

For the past two days I’ve been engaged in a discussion in a private Facebook group about the injuries and deaths caused by lactation consultants who lie. As anticipated, I was met with a wall of denial from lactation professionals. During the course of the discussion I presented more than a dozen scientific citations and […]

It’s hard to predict when a tipping point will occur but once it happens, everything changes. For example, peremptory airline behavior toward passengers — over booking flights, bumping passengers — has been going on for decades, but everything changed when a United Airlines dragged a passenger down the aisle, bloodying him along the way, in […]

There he goes again. Dr. Jack Newman has a disturbing tendency to rationalize or ignore the iatrogenic injuries and deaths causes by relentless promotion of breastfeeding. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Worst case scenario if you give a baby an unnecessary bottle of formula is — nothing! Worst case scenario if you fail to […]

I might have wondered what Andrew Wakefield feels about sparking a measles epidemic among a vulnerable population in Minnesota, but I should have known that he would feel exactly like executives of Big Tobacco felts about lung cancer deaths. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]It’s hardly surprising that Wakefield apes the actions of Big […]

What do climate deniers, anti-vaxxers and alt right supporters all have in common? They are desperate to recuse themselves from reality, but reality bites. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Climate deniers and anti-vaxxers chortle with delight when they place their collective heads in the sand; their joy comes from recusing themselves from reality, but […]

Tina Eschel wrote a fabulous piece that was excerpted on Mayim Bialik’s website Kveller. Eschel explains how a traumatic experience with a lactation consultant made her give up on breastfeeding: [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Bialik should apologize. Eschel shared an intimate, distressing incident to make others aware of how lactation consultants behave and […]

Silly me. I thought I couldn’t feel more contempt for quack psychiatrist Kelly Brogan than I already did. Then she posted this: Saying no to pharmaceuticals is an act of feminism. Every time you open that pill bottle, you are saying ‘nope, you don’t got this’ to your body, and you are instilling a message […]

I reserve my utmost contempt for physicians who line their pockets by peddling pseudoscience, physicians like quack psychiatrist Kelly Brogan, MD. Brogan’s website is a monument to quackery marketing. It includes: The standard quackery Miranda warning: You should not use the information on this site for diagnosis or treatment of any health problem or for […]

Another day, another group of funerals brought to parents and families courtesy of UK midwives. According to the Telegraph: Mothers said their children had died because midwives “couldn’t be bothered” to fulfil basic monitoring tasks, or to act on warnings that babies were in danger. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Twitter allows UK midwives […]