Dr. Seema Yasmin is an MD, epidemiologist, and former disease detective with the Centers for Disease Control (cool job alert) who works in health journalism, doing what NHS doctor Ben Goldacre has implored other doctors and scientists to do: “translating” dense medical studies and scientific data so that the general public can more easily understand them.

This serves such an important purpose, since Instagram wellness influencers and woo peddlers have a much easier time of distilling information and making it easily palatable, whereas most people don’t have the ability or training to sift through medical data and studies to extract what’s important.

In Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them, Dr. Yasmin analyzes 46 myths, stories, conspiracy theories, bits of misinformation or misinterpreted data, pseudoscience beliefs, wellness woo, and outright falsehoods to explain what’s actually relevant for health, patient empowerment, and what important areas accurate data can elucidate. I’m always in support of this topic, and I liked that Yasmin focuses on popular, highly visible topics that grab a lot of headlines or attention in social media posts. Her reasoning was interesting as well: during her work as a disease detective tracking epidemics, she “was confronted with strange pathogens and stranger human behaviors and beliefs.” We’ve seen this strange behavior more than ever this past year, but it’s hardly new.

Among the topics covered are ebola, the fascinating-but-horrifying history behind the dangerous anti-vaxxer movement and its origins, chemtrails, placenta eating, magical-seeming supplements, the misguided concept of detoxing, and flat tummy teas. The most interesting to me were questions around social phenomena such as whether suicide is contagious (actually a lot of interesting if alarming information about suicide here) and differences in treatment and patient outcomes by female and male doctors.

I did have a couple of issues, namely that the author sometimes seems to cherry-pick studies, or else doesn’t flesh out why the information she’s selecting from the relevant studies is more broadly applicable. I say “seems to” because each chapter is fairly short, meaning that most of this isn’t explored in-depth. Rather, she follows the format of laying out the myth and its origins, debunking it, and explaining something around the dangers of the misinformation or cultural context in which it proliferated. Sadly, too often this has to do with an understandable mistrust that’s arisen from long-seated racism and historical mistreatment of people of color and economically weakened communities.

I also think a large part, though not all, of this spread of misinformation is due to the lack of access many Americans have to affordable healthcare, and I would’ve liked to see that addressed in some capacity. It’s part of why I’m so interested in the topic — for many years my best access to health information was the free kind, and it’s easy to feel like you’re doing “research” but not always easy to distinguish if you’re using reputable sources or how those sources came to their conclusions. She includes a “bullshit detection kit” — a list of ways to determine the truthfulness of what you’re reading or hearing, that everyone can benefit from consulting.

And I think each myth was explored briefly in order to include more of them, which is commendable. There’s so much bullshit so readily available that we should take any opportunity to tackle as much of it as possible. But it suffers from a feeling of brushing too quickly past some of these, since the lie is often more memorable or deeply embedded in the cultural consciousness than the truth. I didn’t need convincing as I’m already in agreement with her, but I could see the more stubborn purveyors of said viral BS finding weak spots.

I also found some of the explanations a bit drily written, which again, I think can be attributed to brevity. Or that these were actually originally written as a newspaper column, which I suppose could explain the space constraints and straightforward tone. When she does include personal anecdotes, like from her work or childhood with Indian and Muslim family members holding cultural beliefs that show how certain influences are rooted, it was more memorable.

Because I’ll read anything I can find on the debunking topics and have been trying to educate myself better about medical myth, I’ve already encountered most of these in one form or text or another so I can’t be wildly enthusiastic about it for that alone. If you’re well versed in this information already you might feel like you’re reading too many of the same explanations as well. One chapter about the history of MSG and its demonization was something I was glad to have learned in Eight Flavors, for example, but that I hope others could benefit from learning about. So I still think this is a very important book, especially if you need a good starting point for accessible debunking, or as a reference to return to. If only books like this got as much attention as the social media posts that make debunking necessary in the first place.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, it contains a copyright statement every few paragraphs, which is problematic for a couple of reasons:
- It makes for extremely tedious reading for visually impaired readers using text-to-speech. They can't just skip over the copyright notice. The screen reader reads the text of the copyright notice every single time.
- It signals a lack of trust to readers. Basically, you're saying that if you don't remind us every few paragraphs that the book is copyrighted, we'll pirate it. News flash: Readers know that books are copyrighted. Pirates don't care, no matter how many times you remind them. For the rest of us, it's just insulting.

My apologies to the author, The content of the book seems good. I'm just not able to read it because of some poor choices your publisher made.

Respect for this book. So much respect. I wish I could hand this book to everyone (or hit them over the head with it!) of those I’ve encountered that hold adamant misinformed views - there is just so much medical misinformation out there. Medical myths, conspiracies, ignorance and bad science continue to plague the public and it’s with the help of books like these, we might hold a small chance of reversing, educating or make a difference to BS in the medical community and consumers.

It’s expertly, and incredibly well written, providing a perfect balance between the science, the common misconceptions as well as information and examples of different medical misinformation.

The book is split into easily digestible and readable chunks, with small chapters dedicated to a different topic. It prevents the reader from becoming too overwhelmed with information but packs and awful lot of punch, covering a lot of ground and useful knowledge.

This book is for everyone who would like to educate themselves on misinformation, where the info is delivered in an understandable and entertaining way. I couldn’t get bored reading this book as I was just so invested and interested in what the author covered. I also liked that she’s written in a way that didn’t totally alienate those who perhaps had been misinformed and worked to correct incorrect beliefs by bringing new information to give the reader enough knowledge to make their own new conclusions or provoke a discussion.

There was plenty of interesting topics, such as do vaccines cause MMR? The dangers of pregnancy for different races, GMO foods, detox teas (just the word detox is enough to make me shudder!), supplements and other non medical current topics to name a few. There was so many new interesting studies and cases which I’d never known about before - such as post Ebola syndrome. I learnt a lot reading this book!

And the additive of the BS detection kit at the end was a fantastic little ending note. Definitely need to have that pinned up on the wall!

Overall, ‘Viral BS’ was very well written, informative and full of knowledgeable accounts and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to read this book.

We're all guilty of clicking on that cleverly worded headline that makes us pause and think to ourselves "what if" or looking at our computer clock only to find that you have been down the rabbit hole long enough to make you question your life choices. Seema Yasmin knows this as well as evident by her factual and entertaining analysis' of medical myths that leaves your curiosity sated and your mind informed. A perfect read for anyone who ever stopped and thought "huh, I wonder what this is all about".

Thank you to NetGalley and Johns Hopkins University Press for this advanced copy which I received in return for an honest review.

A lot of topics were covered and each were dissected as to the origin and the theories behind why people believe them. Some readers may skim or skip until they find a topic of interest. I found some topics useful, like how long to keep certain products before you should toss them. An interesting, in-depth book that I'm sure many will enjoy reading.

Thank you Netgalley and John Hopkins University Press for the opportunity to read this book.

This was a really good book. I learned several things I can take to my practice as a nurse. I enjoyed the debunking and the thorough research by Dr. Yasmin. There were things in here that were fascinating, some that were horrifying and some that just made me SMH.

I think medical professionals will enjoy this book. I did think it was a tad heavy on the side that people outside of the profession might find it difficult to read and a little boring. I confess I skipped the part about fracking because it did not interest me. My favorite section was on thalidomide because I gained quite a bit of knowledge from it.

I highly recommend this book for a satisfying foray into the wide world of medicine and rumors!

Thank you to the author, Johns Hopkins University Press and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this collection of health/science articles - most, if not all reprints of the author's newspaper column. Each short chapter focuses on a specific question and (usually) how it can be debunked or how true it is. For many of these chapters, the answer is inconclusive, ending with a "maybe" or "more research is needed", which may be frustrating if you expect a hard and fast answer. I found it fascinating to see how many of these topics have gone viral and become founts of misinformation. However, it's a pity that the author didn't use the opportunity to debunk some of the myths and misinformation around COVID19 - when and where if not here?!

Goodreads review here (direct link not possible): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3659221650

I found this book very difficult to get through; it lies in a strange territory between being too technical for a science-literate layperson and not technical enough for someone working in health.

I also had issues with repetitiveness however, as I read an ARC, this may not be the case with the final text. I found it frustrating that a large number of the questions posed did not have definitive answers but I can also appreciate that that is the nature of science.

This book touches on a lot of important topics and goes a lot deeper than simply dispelling popular conspiracy theories.

I would be interested to try this book as an audiobook as I had a much better time with it when I utilised the text-to-speech function on my Kindle.

In this book the author, a former medical professional, presents medical myths/questions and provides the background as to where these myths arose and include facts as to why they are incorrect.

I think this book is a fascinating read to get general information about why these medical myths are just that, myths. If you are looking for more information regarding a specific topic though, you will have to go and do some more research on your own. What is nice is that the author provides you with enough information that it will be easy for you to start such research if you wish. With that being said, I do feel that this book is more for those with curious minds about medical myths, not necessarily for someone who is looking for hardcore detailed facts.

One part of this book that I enjoyed was how heavily it focused on how stories have more power over people than facts do and that is how these myths come about. The author also went into how celebrities and influencers really do influence the public when it comes to “healthy” fad or different medical procedures. This was fascinating because she showed how the public will listen to these people over medical professionals and end up in the hospital due to these, in reality, very unhealthy products they promote.

As someone who has grown up hearing many of these myths I did find this book to be a very interesting read and recommend it to people who are interested in learning about where these myths came from. I also think this would be a great gift/read for people who are thinking about not vaccinating themselves or their children as it is full of information as to why that is a horrible idea.

Science can be a very tricky topic to write about in an interesting way while maintaining an informative nature. Yasmin did just that. Each small chapter was an excellent primer on the topic at hand. She discussed numerous issues with the healthcare system, including racism, and discussed why information from scientific journals can be so misconstrued in media. An excellent and engaging book, perfect for science fans and the science-averse alike.

As a public health professional who works in the field of health communication, this book definitely piqued my interest. How do we convey information to consumers in a clear and simple way, so they can make informed decisions about their health, when at the same time there is so much medical misinformation out there? This is especially important now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when misinformation is at an all-time high and individuals' decisions could be putting others at risk.
This book works to provide facts and evidence to dispel many medical myths, like "do vaccines cause autism?", "Does aspirin prevent cancer?" "Does the birth control pill cause depression?" etc. I think it would be worth learning about for anyone who is interested (but more importantly those who are not) to help them understand the reasoning why the myths came about, and how the fact and evidence help to explain that they aren't in fact true.

As a current healthcare professional, I have vast experience in breaking down common medical myths to patients and advocating for less misinformation to be spread in regards to our health. This book was a wonderful breakdown of myths I'm sure many of us have heard throughout our lives but never really looked that deeply into. I think this is a great book for those of us interested in the medical field and for those who want a little more research backing what they read on the internet.

In a world where untruths and less-than-truths are everywhere, this book provides an invaluable service.

This book is absolutely needed more than ever. I could absolutely see this book being included in an ELA classroom for its breakdown of fallacies, and think this book can really reinforce critical thinking skills in young minds. While the entire book may not be suitable for most high school attention spans, I would highly advise teachers to use some chapters in their curriculum.

"Viral BS: Medical Myths And Why We Fall For Them", by Dr Seema Yasmin, uses her experience as a doctor, researcher, and medical journalist to her advantage. The chapters, i.e. the articles, are tightly built units. Each one covers the current problematic situation, the misreporting that originated it, the research at the offset. She also added an upbeat prologue to frame the work, as well as the closing “Dr Yasmin’s Bullshit Detection Kit” to give a sense of cohesion. It works well, although often you can feel the separate origins of each chapter. Moreover, most sections forget to explain why a specific misrepresentation of information is persuasive enough to be perpetuated.

The tome is, as a whole, a good piece of solid medical reporting. It is also relevant, well written, engaging, useful. Sadly, it is very much the type of work that will mostly be picked up by readers already interested in this sort of material. Such readers will enjoy it, probably find some new materials. On the other hand, those who would most benefit from it (learn to be critical readers of media) will probably never choose it, let alone read it.

A particularly appropriate read for 2020, and the years to follow,

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley.

This book was well-researched overall but I feel that more time should have been spent on specific topics rather than having such a huge array of 2-4 page synopses. The book did incite some questions in my personal life regarding women’s health, the use of supplements and also on the way that I may approach conversations in the future about hot topics. I found the discussion about people doubling-down on their beliefs in the face of facts really in tune with the times.

I do think that this book has “uncomfortable timing” because a lot could be said regarding COVID, but only one short paragraph made the cut somewhere along the way as an afterthought. I get that this book was likely written in its entirety before COVID, but including COVID in discussions about transmission and vaccinations would really make a strong impact. Perhaps these ideas could be in a later installment.

I’d say this is a rounded up 3.5 rating.

I enjoyed this book, it answers questions you’ve always been wondering about but had no one to ask. Lots of interesting facts included, which made sense to some questions.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

This book tries to clarify various myths and misinformation orevekent in health sector. It uses scientific data and evidence to out forward it's views. Where matter is controversial and beyond fact, book accepts that belief cannot be refuted or endorsed.
A good collection of around 50 such scientific facts and what we know about them.
Very informative and I wish it could have been more I entertaining.

This book caught my attention because of our current Covid situation, marked by disinformation. It can be extremely frustrating when you know the science and facts, but others refuse them and continue spreading false information, so I thought maybe this book would show the way between fact and fiction and help set the record straight on some other medical misinformation, some of which has been spread for decades and then some. I was drawn in by the book's simple question and answer format in short chapters. What a great way to get information to the casual layperson who may or may not know what to believe anymore.

The first chapter was about weight-loss teas, which I've never believed in, but the descriptions of how they can actually be toxic are surprising. Even more shocking is that they aren't regulated in any way. Ditto vitamins and supplements. Yikes. Other topics I found interesting: the recent trend of eating your placenta after giving birth (my OBGYN asked me if I wanted it and in my drug induced haze I believe I said "Throw that shit out."), is trauma inherited, diet sodas in relation to Alzheimer's/stoke (I call Diet Coke "mom juice"), mammograms, statins, supplements, and fracking.

Ultimately and unfortunately, I don't think I was the intended target for this book. Most of the information presented was old news to me and I admit to skimming a few sections. The topics are explained in simple manner, which I sometimes found lacking or a little over generalized. As for the section on vaccines, well, you're never going to change anyone's mind on that so why bother.

And I don't know if it's just because I have an advanced copy, but there is no bibliography or endnotes. For someone who gives us a numerical list in the appendix of what to look out for in deciding if something is true or false, the author doesn't provide the reader with much to go on besides studies mentioned in the text. Should we just take her word for it? (I mean, probably because this is published by a reputable university, but still.)

If this sounds like something you're interested in, by all means get a copy and read it. I'm not saying it's poorly written beyond a couple over generalizations; but if you already have a great handle on viral medical mysteries, then I'd say this is one you can probably skip.

This book is okay but it is far from a blockbuster. The author is a female MD of Indian extraction who leads off herb book with what to do if you mix up your birth control pills with your pet dog's thyroid medicine. What follows is not much better.