Healthy Scepticism

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A searing account of medical controversy, complexity and conspiracy, diagnosing both healthy and unhealthy doubt.

In today’s medical world, scepticism is marginalised: dissenting doctors and uncertain patients are seen as hardly more rational than anti-vaxx conspiracists or questionable wellness gurus. Yet legitimate doubts have been raised throughout human history—and persist for a reason.

This sharp, compassionate book rejects unhelpful binary thinking to explore the vast middle ground where we all really live. Many of us need medicine, and trust science—but still feel wary of big pharma, unsure about new treatments, and let down by a healthcare culture that gaslights and prejudges as often as it helps or heals. From chronic sufferers to minoritised communities, Caitjan Gainty tells the stories of medicine’s critics, victims and outsiders, and unveils the illogical thinking that created both modern medicine and its many sceptics.

Entertaining, enlightening and occasionally enraging, Healthy Scepticism revisits our ancient tradition of distrusting doctors and prescribes a new course of treatment. With a well-founded dose of doubt, we can see medicine’s successes and shortcomings—and understand where our broken system went wrong.