Overkill: when modern medicine goes too far

Is lowering your temperature when you have a fever helpful? Do you really need to finish every course of antibiotics? Or could some of the treatments you think are healing you actually be harming you? Medicine has significantly advanced in the last few decades. But while we have learned a lot, we still rely on medical interventions that are vastly out of date and can adversely affect our health. In this game-changing book, infectious-disease expert and Rotavirus vaccine inventor Dr Offit highlights fifteen common medical interventions still recommended and practised by medical professionals, despite clear evidence that they are harmful — including the treatment of acid reflux in babies and the reliance on heart stents and knee surgery. By presenting medical alternatives, Overkill gives patients invaluable information to help them ask their doctors better questions and to advocate for their own health.

About the Author :
Dr Paul Offit is the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, as well as the Maurice R. Hilleman professor of vaccinology and a professor of paediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of ten medical narratives, including Vaccinated, Deadly Choices, and Bad Faith.

Review :
‘A myth-busting book.’ ‘With ample end notes (50 pages worth) to support challenges he may expect to be forthcoming, this hit-list of medical myths and misguided therapies comes from a highly reputable source - the director of Vaccine Education at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and a professor of vaccinology and paediatrics.’ Praise for Bad Advice: ‘In breezy and deceptively conversational prose that often winks with humour, Bad Advice breaks down complex scientific subjects that have been distorted through several cultural lenses’ Praise for Bad Advice: ‘Paul Offit is a pediatrician, a vaccine scientist, and one of our foremost explainers of science. In Bad Advice, he distills what he has learned — often the hard way — from standing up for science in the face of bogus theories, quack remedies, and the flat-out denial of empirical fact. Skillfully, Offit uses stories of his many missteps in the treacherous public arena to teach us how to confront pseudoscience effectively. In the process, without noticing, we learn fascinating lessons in the relevant science. A forcefully-written, indispensable book, particularly at the present moment.’ Praise for Bad Advice: ‘The beauty of mass communication in our free society is also our curse. Information flows so quickly, from so many different sources, that one can't help but be overwhelmed — and too frequently misled. No one has fought harder over the years to educate the public, and to puncture the dangerously false dogmas of pseudoscience, than Paul Offit. Bad Advice is a brilliant extension of his dictate, so aptly stated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, that one is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts. Celebrities and politicians bear the brunt of Offit's elegantly written, often hilarious, pinpoint assaults. But what makes this book truly special is its vision of how science can, and must, be defended against its despoilers. Bad Advice is, in every sense, an essential read.’ Praise for Pandora's Lab: ‘Many dramatic scientific discoveries have lost their gloss or perhaps were never scientific to begin with, as pediatrician Offit shows in this heated denunciation of bad science … In warning the public of pseudoscientific danger, Offit urges the public to examine available data; beware of quick fixes, fads, and charismatic health gurus; and understand that every advance comes at a price.’ Praise for Pandora's Lab: ‘Pandora's Lab deftly details seven scientific mistakes that have occurred over the last 100 years … Sufficient data exposes the truth when different scientists verify the claims, but this work's examples reveal how this obvious check procedure becomes ignored or bypassed in response to extraordinary hopes, popular movements, and/or by defaulting to one individual.’ Praise for Do You Believe in Magic?: ‘Over the last decade [Offit] has become a leading debunker of mass misconceptions surrounding infections and vaccines, and now he is taking on the entire field of alternative medicine, from acupuncture to vitamins.’ Praise for Do You Believe in Magic?: ‘With a fascinating history of hucksters, and a critical chronology of how supplements escaped regulation, Offit cautions consumers not to ‘give alternative medicine a free pass because we’re fed up with conventional medicine.’ His is a bravely unsentimental and dutifully researched guide for consumers to distinguish between quacks and a cure.’ STARRED REVIEW