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RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE
Personal blog · respectfulinsolence.comhealthscience
RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE is a personal blog at respectfulinsolence.com about health and science. Since 2017, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 31 times, most often “WTF Happened to the BMJ?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (24) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Respectful Insolence, a science blog, for detailed, evidence-based critiques of quack medicine, anti-vaccine claims and Covid-era misinformation. It is often shared as a thorough debunking.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 24 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Respectful Insolence is the personal blog maintained by a surgical oncologist and skeptic who has made it his mission to separate medical science from pseudoscience (and who loves Blakes 7).
Most-linked posts?
- WTF Happened to the BMJ?3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-11-15
- /2020/04/03/zelenko-smith-abandoning-evidence-based-medicine-for-covid-19/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-04-06
- /2021/07/13/is-mrna-vaccine-inventor-robert-malone-being-erased-for-his-claims-about-covid-19/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-29
- /2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-12-12
- /2021/06/11/cggcgg-the-latest-new-old-wrinkle-in-the-covid-19-lab-leak-conspiracy-theory/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-07-06
What Hacker News says?
It wasn't Lyme. Kris Kirstofferson is a victim of quackery: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2016/07/08/kris-kristofferso...
Comment linking /2016/07/08/kris-kristofferson-the-latest-celebrity-quackery-victim/
on “A shot to prevent Lyme disease could be on its way”Submitted WTF Happened to the BMJ? as a story · 14 points
HN discussionIt sounds like a useful technique, but I'm saying that what you're claiming is a far cry from what the paper claims. They're describing a fruitful research direction and outlining how you might get around certain problems (evaluating models is slow, retraining on inserts, etc.) Also, predicting power usage is a different problem than scheduling. It's not "managing Borg" by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not say…
Comment linking /2017/09/18/ibm-watson-not-living-up-to-hype-as-a-tool-to-fight-cancer/
on “Ask HN: What was the best CS paper you read in 2017?”Submitted WTF Happened to the BMJ? as a story · 13 points
HN discussionIn your subsequent comment you add the important point - this is Germany. Having lived both in Germany and (now) in China, i can confirm that both of these countries have a problem with quack medicine. I've never been anywhere else in the world where you need to argue with pharmacists to persuade them to sell you evidence-based medicine. In China there is some historical reason for it - Mao needed something to placa…
Comment linking /2019/05/29/mao-triumphant/
on “WHO declares coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency”Submitted On “natural immunity” to Covid-19 (and every other vaccine-preventable disease) as a story · 10 points
HN discussionYour characterization of the blog post lacks any reference to the blog post. Here's one: > Thacker’s main source was a “whistleblower” named Brook Jackson, who had worked at Ventavia for only two weeks. As I described, the allegations were either big nothingburgers that wouldn’t have affected the quality of the data (e.g., not appropriately using sharps containers to dispose of sharps) or were mainly insinuated and…
Comment linking /2021/11/15/wtf-happened-to-the-bmj/
on “Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong”Submitted Integrative medicine and spoon bending at the University of Alberta as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm an absolute enemy of both "fact checking" and corporate regulation of speech, in coordination with government, on forums as large and general as Facebook. That being said, this supporter of the Facebook action, who is well qualified to speak, offers very good arguments that this was not science but instead guest editorial by a regular woo/conspiracy pitcher, and another specific indictment of recent BMJ editoria…
Comment linking /2021/11/15/wtf-happened-to-the-bmj/
on “Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong”Submitted Stephanie Seneff: Blaming glyphosate in biofuels and e-cigs for Covid-19 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionBeware Vinay Prasad: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2022/07/27/john-ioannidi...
Comment linking /2022/07/27/john-ioannidis-and-vinay-prasad-team-up-to-lecture-social-media-about-obsessive-criticism/
on “Effect of Colonoscopy Screening on Risks of Colorectal Cancer and Related Death”Submitted Animal Planet: Showcasing Acupuncture Quackery at the San Diego Zoo as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI can only recommend this article about bmj: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/11/15/wtf-happened-to-t...
Comment linking /2021/11/15/wtf-happened-to-the-bmj/
on “Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now”Or for a cynical (but evidence based) rebuttal to this bullshit, have a look here - https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/03/16/reiki-in-the-atla... It's just another nonsense, unscientific, 'energy healing' pile of woo trying to get itself integrated into medicine.
Comment linking /2020/03/16/reiki-in-the-atlantic/
on “Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?”Not very surprising given the quality of the studies that this fad is based on: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/04/03/zelenko-smith-aba... That's a long read, but it's pretty damning. TL;DR: China says "hey, this stuff might work". French doctor conducts two very sketchy rapid-fire studies, then starts promoting himself on TV, including on Dr. Oz. No red flags there, right?
Comment linking /2020/04/03/zelenko-smith-abandoning-evidence-based-medicine-for-covid-19/
on “Study: Severe Covid-19 Cases Don't Respond to Hydroxychloroquine+Azithromycin”The sad fact of the situation that argument by some proxy does not really work. A person goes like "Here is what my scientist say!" and the others are like "No, you are wrong! Here is what my scientist say". It is quite funny thing. But in the link you posted > https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/06/11/cggcgg-the-latest... I often found that site to be less trustworthy because of a large part of the beginning of th…
Comment linking /2021/06/11/cggcgg-the-latest-new-old-wrinkle-in-the-covid-19-lab-leak-conspiracy-theory/
on “The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory”I found this link [0] that seems to debunk, in a lot of detail, the congressional testimony of these two physicists on the specifics of their claims for evidence of gain of function manipulation in the gentic sequence of covid-19. That jives with another source [1] that explained, amongst other things, that there's genetic evidence covid-19 evolved in animals with intact immune systems, not in a lab. [0] https://res…
Comment linking /2021/06/11/cggcgg-the-latest-new-old-wrinkle-in-the-covid-19-lab-leak-conspiracy-theory/
on “The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory”More quack science. See https://respectfulinsolence.com/2016/06/17/the-mend-protocol... for a slightly less breathless account.
Comment linking /2016/06/17/the-mend-protocol-for-alzheimers-disease-functional-medicine-on-steroids/
on “The Bredesen protocol for treating Alzheimer’s”This is a much better and thorough critique than I could write up: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/04/03/zelenko-smith-aba...
Comment linking /2020/04/03/zelenko-smith-abandoning-evidence-based-medicine-for-covid-19/
on “Low-dose Hydroxychloroquine Therapy and Mortality in Hospitalized Patients”As this needs clarified: You’re the one who brought up the state’s overriding “interference” in parental decisions that impact their sick children. You’re the one bringing black-white thinking to a complex and difficult problem space that is every shade of gray. The pseudo-libertarian argument against this—that parents have absolute rights over their own children and no-one else (e.g. the state) has no right to over…
Comment linking /2019/05/10/noah-mcadams-another-story-of-parental-rights-to-choose-quackery-versus-the-rights-of-a-child-with-cancer/
on “Cancer Treatment: China Mulls Looser Experimental Therapy Rules”No: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/02/10/medical-error-thi...
Comment linking /2020/02/10/medical-error-third-most-common-cause-of-death/
on “Medical errors now third leading cause of death in United States (2016)”Interesting discussion of Dr. Malone: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/07/13/is-mrna-vaccine-i...
Comment linking /2021/07/13/is-mrna-vaccine-inventor-robert-malone-being-erased-for-his-claims-about-covid-19/
on “Dr. Robert W. Malone has been suspended from Twitter”Contrarian view: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/04/29/no-theres-no-good...
Comment linking /2021/04/29/no-theres-no-good-evidence-that-spike-protein-from-covid-19-vaccine-injures-the-lungs/
on “Covid Spike Protein Elicits Signaling in Host Cells: Implications for Vaccines”https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/06/30/ivermectin-is-the...
Comment linking /2021/06/30/ivermectin-is-the-new-hydroxychloroquine-for-covid-19-take-2-flccc-conspiracies/
on “Ivermectin and the odds of hospitalization due to Covid-19”The senior author has a long history of bad science on autism and is funded by an anti-vax group. There's a [complete takedown of this bad science here](( https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley... ) There is a reason that this is published in the "Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology", and not in something more reputable.
Comment linking /2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/
on “Aluminum in brain tissue in autism”https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley...
Comment linking /2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/
on “Aluminum in brain tissue in autism”https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/04/26/christian-elliots... > This is a half-truth that antivaxxers just love. It’s a half-truth in that, yes, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 did require that claims for vaccine injury go through a special “Vaccine Court”, setting up a system called the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP or VICP), with the compensation fund funded by a tax on each dose o…
Comment linking /2021/04/26/christian-elliots-18-reasons-i-wont-be-getting-a-covid-vaccine-18-antivaccine-lies/
on “Millions Are Saying No to the Vaccines. What Are They Thinking?”This study is only interesting as a prerequisite for reading this... https://respectfulinsolence.com/2020/05/29/hooker-and-miller... And, as mentioned here (among other places), https://twitter.com/gorskon/status/1266391373592309761 ... "Brian Hooker and Neil Z. Miller, [are] two antivaccine propagandists disguising themselves as scientists."
Comment linking /2020/05/29/hooker-and-miller-publish-terrible-vaxxed-unvaxxed-study/
on “Analysis of health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated children (2020)”https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2011/12/12/what-dr-stani... Sounds more like a Doctor preying on desperate people who will try anything for a cure and charging them too much for it.
Comment linking /2011/12/12/what-dr-stanislaw-burzynski-doesnt-want/
on “Suppressing a cancer cure for more than 40 years [video]”He was not "one of the early inventors of mRNA vaccines". He admitted as much when pressed on it: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/3aa2eefd The only reason anyone started thinking he _had_ invented the mRNA vaccine was his wife editing his Wikipedia article to claim that he had: https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/07/13/is-mrna-vaccine-i...
Comment linking /2021/07/13/is-mrna-vaccine-inventor-robert-malone-being-erased-for-his-claims-about-covid-19/
on a deleted thread
