David Gorski, MD, PhD, FACS, is a surgical oncologist at the Karmanos Cancer Institute — both a surgeon and a scientist, an unusual and interesting combination. He is best known to the public as a prolific anti-quackery activist, both as a managing editor of Science-Based Medicine and the author of one of the top ten medical blogs, Respectful Insolence. His interest in pseudoscience and “alternative” medicine started in 2000, when he started critically examining some claims he stumbled across in the Usenet newsgroup misc.health.alternative.

Much of what you may have read about Dr. Gorski around the Internet is untrue: he is the target of some serious harassment and misinformation campaigning, such as an unusually “creative” series of defamatory articles by Mike Adams. I’ve known Dr. Gorski personally since 2009, and he obviously cares deeply about his work, his patients, and his family (and his dog, and science fiction, and so on). Like most of the anti-quackery activists I know, he’s an idealist who’s not just trying to make the world a better place, but taking plenty of risks to do it.

As a scientist, Dr. Gorski runs an active research laboratory and has recently taken an active interest in the problems of breast cancer overdiagnosis and overtreatment. His research has been funded by the NIH, the Department of Defense, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO, and others, and been published in prestigious journals such as Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, Blood, Nature Reviews Cancer, and Nature.

~ Paul Ingraham, PainSci Publisher

Related Content

These three articles on PainScience.com mention Dr. David Gorski as a source:

1. Why “Science”-Based Instead of “Evidence”-Based?
2. T’ai Chi Helps Fibromyalgia, but It’s Not “Alternative” Medicine
3. Placebo Power Hype

Authored by (or directly relevant to) Dr. David Gorski:

• ScienceBasedMedicine.org [Internet]. Gorski D. Does massage therapy decrease inflammation and stimulate mitochondrial growth? An intriguing study oversold; 2012 Feb 13 [cited 12 Mar 9]. PainSci Bibliography 54451 ❐

Cited by these PainSci article(s):

• Does Massage Therapy Work?
• Massage Does Not Reduce Inflammation
• Sciencebasedmedicine.org [Internet]. Gorski D. Are medical errors really the third most common cause of death in the U.S.?; 2021 August 31 [cited 21 Aug 31]. PainSci Bibliography 52127 ❐

Cited by these PainSci article(s):

• Medical Errors in Perspective
• ScienceBasedMedicine.org [Internet]. Gorski D. Fashionably toxic; 2011 May 23 [cited 14 Sep 16]. PainSci Bibliography 53766 ❐

Cited by these PainSci article(s):

• Toxins, Schmoxins!
• ScienceBasedMedicine.org [Internet]. Ingraham P. About Science-Based Medicine; 2011 Apr 25 [cited 15 Feb 11]. PainSci Bibliography 54722 ❐

Cited by these PainSci article(s):

• Why “Science”-Based Instead of “Evidence”-Based?
• No Comment
• I’m officially more important now
• ScienceBasedMedicine.org [Internet]. Gorski D. Tai Chi versus physical therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee: How CAM “rebranding” works; 2016 May 23 [cited 17 Oct 26]. PainSci Bibliography 53492 ❐
• ScienceBasedMedicine.org [Internet]. Gorski D. Tai chi and fibromyalgia in the New England Journal of Medicine: An “alternative” frame succeeds; 2010 Aug 25 [cited 12 Feb 19]. PainSci Bibliography 55025 ❐

Cited by these PainSci article(s):

• T’ai Chi Helps Fibromyalgia, but It’s Not “Alternative” Medicine
• Gorski DH, Novella SP. Clinical trials of integrative medicine: testing whether magic works? Trends in Molecular Medicine. 2014. PainSci Bibliography 53769 ❐

Cited by these PainSci article(s):

• Why “Science”-Based Instead of “Evidence”-Based?
• Most Pain Treatments Damned With Faint Praise