“Why would he mislead people like that?” ∞
Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.
I once explained to a reader that a claim made by a popular massage therapist author was completely bogus, and she earnestly asked, “Why would he mislead people like that?” She was actually puzzled! Apparently it had never occurred to her that any health care professional might be a crank, or self-serving, or even just too optimistic. It’s hard for me to relate to such innocence. The world is overflowing with misinformation, particularly about health. Indeed, most of it is problematic in some way, even though much of it is produced with good intentions.
That little anecdote is now the new intro to an old article: