A December 2014 Interview with Dr Ben Goldacre

You might have read few posts here about Dr Ben Goldacre, but none of them really addressed those questions:

• You’re a busy doctor and researcher. Why did you start writing?
• Going back through the collected works, it was quite clear that popular media outlets gave you space to be pretty nerdy about statistics and research methods, which is uncommon in health writing today.
• Over a decade, you’ve debunked everything from ear candling to the anti-vaccine movement, and poorly designed education and health policies. Have you seen any progress?
• Vaccine denialism remains stubbornly in place. Why do you think that is?
• What you seem to be saying here is that it is pretty difficult to fight quacks with science?
• But you’re the guy who got your dead cat the same certificate as a famous British nutritionist just to demonstrate how bogus her credentials were. Didn’t you hope that your work would have an impact on shutting down quack enterprises?
• What does this irrational thinking about health suggest about the kinds of policies we should make?
• Big Pharma, and some of the harmful impact it has had on health and science, has been another key target of yours. What are the biggest pharma boondoggles going on right now?
• You’ve been trying to address that problem — of the broken information architecture of medicine — with your AllTrials campaign. How’s that going?

Read Meet the anti-Dr. Oz: Ben Goldacre, by Julia Belluz, health reporter for Vox, December 27, 2014.