Lots of conspiracy theories debunked in this book. Some are more obvious than others. It's not as obvious as it was with all the Covid kookiness.

This book is NOT an explanation of Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them. It is a series of articles (that were originally newspaper columns) on a disparate, varied and seemingly random set of myths - chemtrails, vaccinations and autism, gun violence, MSG and more. Some of them I was familiar with from other articles and podcasts. Some I didn't care about. Despite Seema Yasmin being British, all examples in this book were very American.

One chapter - the final one - attempts to take a wider look at "truth" "post-truth" "misinformation" "disinformation". The book misses the opportunity to take a wider view of the situation. It already feels dated. It never mentions social media, COVID-19 or wellness, all of which I might expect to find.

Seema Yasmin could have produced an interesting, and even an important book. Instead this is (or reads like) a collection of old newspaper columns, that you might have read in a paper newspaper. An opportunity missed.

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A fascinating book of collected articles to combat misinformation on a variety of science-related topics.
If you are sick and tired of having to argue with acquaintances who cannot see past conspiracy theories and seem to have not taken a single science class in school -- do consider giving them a copy of this book.
It may save you a lot of energy. And Dr. Seems Yasmin sure has great credentials to explain the science behind
everything. Plus, she has become a television personality too, during the COVID-19 pandemic. That helps too -- in selling stuff to the disbelievers.

5 Stars, a must read, and so timely. I will be handselling this as much as possible. The author is bold and blunt when writing about the NIH and the current lack of EPA oversight in certain areas.

Reads easily and is fascinating.

Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why We Fall for Them
By Seema Yasim
Pub Date 12 Jan 2021

I had expected the book to reference common urban legends as well as misinformation on many medical subjects. I was very pleased to read this is not the case in this book. The subjects have a wide range, a few that I had been aware of and many that I did not.

When referencing a subject, the author will discuss the claims of common belief, then comment on a study or a couple of studies. This explains if the myth is factual, probable, or false. The many subjects discussed in the book, made for an enjoyable read.

#ViralBSMedicalMythsandWhyWEFallforThem

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my review. This did not influence my review in any way.

I was very excited to be given this book to review as it is the sort of thing that I would pick up on my own. I find this type of book to be very hit or miss. Many of them have false or outdated information, or they say little more than could be found in the most basic google search. Thankfully this book was a great read that I highly recommend.

This was a a clearly written and fascinating read. Yasmin is both intelligent and funny and she articulates her arguments with wit and candor. The topics span all sorts of common medical and health misconceptions, from GMOs to vaccines to connections between periodontal disease and heart disease. She does not pull punches when discussing awful things that the NIH and other health organizations have done in the past, as well as current lack of EPA oversight in certain areas.

Anyone who already has an interest in health or medical science (like me) will find topics they have already read about fleshed out in this book, as well as things they have never seen covered. Those who are new to these topics will find their eyes opened on many intriguing topics that are explained in an accessible manner.

Thanks to NetGalley for this book. Viral BS is one of those books that comes in handy in the age of the internet. Daily we are told x,y and z are bad for you, we consistently say did you hear that or read that. We fall into rabbit holes on YouTube. The term fake news is on everyone’s tongue, and with covid being at the forefront of everyone’s mind we struggle to figure out the truth. Enter this book. With numbers, research and studies some of the biggest myths and questions are answered. It is number heavy, as far as studies go, but some of the chapters are truly fascinating. Questions like is suicide contagious? Or do vaccines cause Autism? It’s one of those books you’d like to have to keep for reference, definitely a good pick up if you’ve ever wondered about some of the things that go viral online.

Do we inherit trauma from our parents? How long can you est leftovers? Does the birth control pill cause depression?

Many questions and many more answers about the medical myths, which gave me another perspective about vaccines, sugar rush, autism and many more.

Thank you NetGalley, Seema Yasmin and Johns Hopkins University Press for this ARC.

Thanks to Dr. Yasmin and Books Forward for providing me with the ARC to review!

My Rating: 4/5

“So what use is the truth anyway?”

This statement is very poignant, especially if you have ever tried to argue with a relative on social media. Sometimes it feels like, no matter how many facts you have or how many sources you cite, you cannot change a person’s mind once it’s made up. Dr. Seema Yasmin explores this issue at length in her book Viral BS, examining why people are so set in their beliefs, even when they are incorrect, and how occasionally you can change their mind.

Information Literacy is becoming more vital as our access to information grows. We need to know how to avoid the fiction and find the facts. One thing I like to do when I read a non-fiction book, especially one dealing with anything health related, is to check out the source of this information. I looked up the author, Dr. Seema Yasmin, and was in awe of her credentials. This was enough to encourage me to read her book.

The chapters of Viral BS are split into different beliefs/misconceptions that people have about health and science, and explore the history behind the beliefs and the studies involved. If you are not a traditional cover-to-cover reader, this chapter set-up facilitates the ability to peruse the different questions based on your interest in the topic. Personally, I read the book from start to finish, but the narrative is open enough where skipping a chapter that doesn’t interest you personally will not affect the readability of the book.

I found that there was a good variety of topics covered by Dr. Yasmin. The first few chapters cover popular areas of contention, such as flat-tummy detox teas, vaccines, and autism. Even with my previous understanding of these topics, I still learned a lot from the facts that were presented. As I moved through the book, the topics became less familiar to me, with some chapters introducing brand new information, like the one on the Statin debate. This could possibly be because of my age, or where I grew up, but I just never came across these topics before. Each chapter is clearly well researched, with some including several studies discussing the many different aspects of the argument and its history. However, no matter how detailed the chapters were, I never felt overwhelmed by data, which can happen quite easily when dealing with scientific studies.

The level of detail that Dr. Yasmin puts into her research is impressive. I know that a lot of statistics and quoted studies can be daunting, and too much scientific jargon can be off-putting for the casual reader, but Dr. Yasmin is able to break up the science with a narrative voice that keeps this book from becoming too much like a textbook. I enjoyed the author’s personal stories and bits of humour that were injected among the facts, it lightened the tone of the book without removing any of the credibility. In fact, I found that by including stories from her work history and even from her childhood, I could more easily accept the information she was providing as plausible. I also really appreciated that Dr. Yasmin pulled no punches when it came to pointing out when the medical community failed in its treatment of marginalized communities, women and BIPOC.

“We don’t talk much about the bloody history of public health or the creation of modern medicine…By airing our dirty laundry, we get to get to the truth of modern-day public health travesties”.

It’s easy to blame these beliefs on people’s ignorance, but as Dr. Yasmin explains, a lot of this misinformation can be traced to injustices that occurred in the history of the medical community. I’m happy that Dr. Yasmin addresses this instead of pushing it aside like so many people do.

With a non-fiction book, there are certain things I’m looking for. For me, credibility is the most important, and Dr. Yasmin definitely provided that. Another is readability, which I believe was also achieved in Viral BS. I do admit, there were a couple of chapters that I found to be a bit harder to get through, as the topic itself was not really of interest to me. I will also note that I read this book in bits and pieces, as it is quite a bit of information to digest all at once. However, I had no problem picking it back up to continue reading, and I didn’t feel like it was an effort to finish in the least. I especially liked the ‘Bullshit Detection Kit’ included at the back of the book. This is a great little guide to information literacy that everyone should use when reading things online. Overall, I recommend this book to everyone who wants to be more informed, or who has a curiosity for health matters and the origins of common beliefs.

We both really enjoyed this! I am a huge skeptic when it comes to any conspiracy theories and I find people who dig their heels in about unfounded beliefs to be particularly grating. I think this cognitive dissonance type of idiocy is my biggest pet peeve. Dr Yasmin does a gorgeous job of addressing some of the most pernicious medical beliefs and either confirming them with actual science, debunking them with actual science, or getting to the heart of issues that don't have a clear answer with actual science. She also never fails to acknowledge the effects that racism and sexism have on medical issues. I loved her bullshit detector at the end of the book, which every librarian will recognize as the general guidelines for finding credible resources. I think if you have an interest in science, medicine, conspiracy theories, or human psychology, this book is for you.

I'm a huge science geek but I was not a fan of this book. It's written by a former doctor who's now a journalist and writes newspaper columns debunking things. It's going to be a huge hit in the anti-natural crowd because it's written exactly like the sort of things they lap up. She starts out by making her Indian grandmother and her childhood peers sound like idiots, saying they were all "conspiracy theorists" because her very traditional grandmother told her once that men hadn't landed on the moon and her friends used to look for signs that Michael Jackson was a satanist in his records. Then she mocks an American mother who came into a colleague's office during the Ebola crisis and wanted an ebola vaccine for her child and then refused a flu vaccine. She talks about how they laughed at her afterwards. Yes, ebola was not in this country yet and never made a big appearance here and the flu can be deadly (and there was no ebola vaccine), but the whole thing just made this mother sound like an idiot instead of recognizing her humanity. How many mothers also went to their doctors early last year and were concerned about the novel coronavirus that had just appeared in China and were also told they were being silly? (In my own ER in April the doctor told me there was no way I'd been sick with covid for the past 6 weeks because I hadn't traveled internationally and "it's not in Minnesota.") I'm just not a fan of making people seem stupid to make other people feel smarter.

The book also does a lot of cherry picking of facts. In the chapter about GMOs, she talks about all the ways genetically engineered crops are fantastic for humanity and going to save us all. Only pages in does she mention one of the biggest reasons to avoid them -- Roundup Ready crops. These crops are genetically engineered so they can withstand glyphosate (and huge doses of it), which kill all the other plants and are linked to dozens of serious health problems including cancer (besides environmental damage). She acknowledges that the World Health Organization has classified glyphosate as a probably carcinogen but she says "but some studies haven't shown this." ??? To quote a dear (atheist, science-loving) friend, "Where do I begin with this f*ckery?". Just no. If any studies say what you want to believe, then you just go with them? That's just not how good science works.

To Yasmin's credit, she does talk about things like the Muskogee experiment where our government allowed doctors to harm African American families for decades in the name of science, but there's always that "that was in the past, we'd never do that now" kind of tone, even though we've caught drug companies and governments continuing to do this sort of thing right through to the present. And again, there's this sort of tone like immigrants and people of color are paranoid and ignorant not to trust doctors, pharmaceutical companies or the government.

A lot of her facts are also just plain wrong. Again and again, I found instances where I'd actually looked into a study and it didn't say what she said. In other cases I just don't honestly believe her. She tells one story of how in an American neonatal ward (recently!) all these babies had pertussis because many of the nurses had it and were "coughing all over them" because they wouldn't take sick days and lose out on vacation time. She said that they refused to get the vaccine so they were spreading it to all the infants. I don't even know where to begin with that claim, but I'll pretend that actually happened. If you look into the pertussis vaccine (usually given in the DTaP), it actually only protects YOU from getting pertussis (or symptoms, really). It does not prevent you from spreading it. One government study a few years ago found that people who got the DTaP actually had pertussis in their airways for over a month on average and were asymptomatic carriers who could unknowingly spread it to others, and they also found that people who came in contact with pertussis still spread it without developing symptoms and possibly led to three times as many infections as symptomatic people. None of this is mentioned in the book, which I would have expected if you were doing to have a rational discussion about how to keep infants safe from pertussis (the CDC recommends "cocooning" during early months). Yasmin also said that 2 out of 3 nurses surveyed said they didn't think flu vaccines were safe, and then she railed against them for basically sickening everyone in the world and killing us all willy nilly but never explored why on earth more than half of these medical professionals believe it's unsafe. I'd kind of like to talk to them about that. That seems pretty logical, especially as they are medical professionals who might have good input. But no, to hear Yasmin tell it, most nurses are anti-vaccine quacks killing babies so they don't lose vacation time.

The book also just goes on and on in some cases and unless you're really into scientific details it may make your eyes cross after a while. She starts out with the stories everybody will eat up -- tummy teas that kill people, Andrew Wakefield and autism, that sort. Later on there's stuff like is there lead in your lipstick (yes, probably) and she sort of goes around and around in facts and then sort of gives advice but not really. The one about your cat's poop influencing your business sense was badly explained and was one of the shorter chapters, even though the actual studies and science are really interesting and could have done with way better explanation (and it doesn't really have to do with business sense).

I'm sure this book will be a hit with some audiences, but it was not one that I liked at all. I fully expect it to be on lists like Goodreads' best science books of the year though, as the cover and the tone will greatly appeal to many.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

This is a very informative book in a time where misinformation is spreading like wildfire. The author includes anecdotes relating the topics to her life so it doesn't feel like you're being preached to. I think everyone should read this book.

Very interesting book, addictive. In a mix of storytelling, anecdotal evidence and hard facts, Dr Yasmin not only debunks common myths but walks us through how media cherry-picking and editorial bias affect out perception of medical risks. Totally recommended.

Excellent work. The scientific work behind every chapter is astonishing, with every single argument supported by evidence and multiple studies, and without glossing over the bad episodes of medical history as we know it. The author even includes a "BS Detector" at the very end of the book, which is quite useful in times like these. Definitely would recommend for anyone interested in science, or anti-conspirationnism.

Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. Loved the question and answer format. A lot of interesting information and fun to read.

A very interesting book. I had such an enjoyable time reading about all the myths and data behind them.

As a person who enjoys these stories I could not resist this book. It is rather extensive. I had expected some fast fact-checking, but every chapter is quite elaborate.

So recommendable if you want to know the real story behind the myths.

There is a good case for saying this book is the right book for the wrong time. The author, if she's still lecturing in science journalism, and telling the world about medical myths, will never have been busier than in 2020 and in 2021. And yet the coronasniffles gets about one mention in these pages. Don't get me wrong, I certainly welcomed the re-emergence of the criminals who led to the whole MMR = autism nonsense, who you could dismiss with the flat earthers as beyond all hope if they hadn't caused the loss of so many lives. But I did expect that a book with such a charged title as this, coming out at this kind of time, would have had a heck of a lot more to say about anti-vaxxers and their ilk. I did learn that it was partly anti-white racism, especially where the Nation of Islam stir it up with what appears to be zero comeuppance, but they were surely too great a target to miss in such a way.

It takes until the very end before this volume admits it's a collection of reprints from an American newspaper column, which has covered the healthiness of fracking (not good), the return to the market of thalidomide (not good), and so many other things besides. That, to repeat, gets in the way of this book being what I expected, even if it will open the reader to so much else – from contrails (not bad) to Vitamin D supplements (not worth it). You can gain insight perhaps into how academics think of suicide, and mull over which gender your medics should be and when you might be best not to see them, if anywhen.

And there is the nutjobbery the book should rail at – even if it seems confined mostly to the start here. Forget some ginger nut biscuit "thinking out loud" about drinking bleach to kill off Covid, some people are actively getting rich selling bleach as a cure for autism, believe it or not. And ultimately, those four words are the core of the whole piece – what we should believe, and how we might best be told it so that we do, and how we don't end up with so much dirt on our hands from the people who choose not to believe it. I'll give this four stars, although I'm obliged to close with the remark a lot of it is geared towards the USA, and many chapters don't travel terribly well.

I liked the book a lot. I'm the kind of person that looks up this sort of things. Maybe because it's a must for my work. Misinformation, mass-media cheery picking some study or maybe a shady funding? Unfortunately this isn't new but social media seems to amplify it.
I also liked the BS detector in the end of the book. However, the problem is larger than fake news and celebs advertising some detox tea (why do people NEED this flat tummy). People spend time on facebook and twitter to relax and chill. Reading a too good to be true article and then looking up to see if it's true isn't so glamorous. Sure, doctors and journalists and other people do it but others, most of them I think, don't do it. It's either because they don't have the time or simply aren't in the mood for researching even if it's just a click away.
I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in correct information. However, I don't know who the audience is. The people that already believe social media and mass-media is full of BS? Maybe. Because if its the other, the people that believe these myths, I don't know if any book might convince them otherwise. Let's hope it does.

What a fascinating book! I couldn't put this one down and finished in about a day and a half. Dr. Seema Yasmin's book, Viral BS: Medical Myths and Why we Fall for Them, sets out to clarify the most popular misconceptions we have regarding several topics in science and medicine. Her prose is clear and accessible and she offers thorough research to back up her findings.

A couple examples: the raging debate (well, not really a debate as the science is fairly settled) about whether vaccines cause autism, whether playing football causes irreparable brain damage, and why certain communities are more likely to mistrust doctors (caused by years of racist policies and unethical medical procedures).

My favorite part of the book? The very end where Yasmin includes her "BS detector." This should precede every tweet, Facebook post, IG reel, whatever, that purports to tell us some medical, political, societal, or scientific "truth."

I'd highly recommend this--it was truly a fun read and there's plenty to learn through it.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Johns Hopkins University Press and author Seema Yasmin for making this copy available for review.