The Skeptical Sleuth

Applying a healthy dose of skepticism to new findings about health and psychology.

James C. Coyne Ph.D.

Screening Cancer Patients for Distress

Perhaps quality indicators should register if every cancer patient gets a chance for an unhurried discussion about their unmet needs, but not necessarily with a busy, overcommitted oncologist or oncology nurse specialist.

Dissecting a Misleading Abstract

Abstract puts positive spin on ineffective couple’s intervention for cancer patients.

Investigating the Accuracy of Abstracts: An Introduction

An African physician changed an effective perinatal HIV prevention program into an ineffective one based on misleading abstracts obtained from the Internet.

Authors, Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You

Articles published in high-impact journals regularly escape adequate peer review and may not be based on the best evidence.

Faux Evidence-Based Behavioral Medicine Part 2

Disappointing review of interventions for cancer pain doesn't provide evidence where in treatment psychologists should go or what they should do.

Faux Evidence-Based Behavioral Medicine at Its Worst (Part I)

Would you hesitate to ask for full control of cancer pain in a loved one with medication based on recommendations that psychosocial (nonpharmacological) interventions were effective?

Irving Kirsch: Déjà Vu All Over Again?

Kirsch has been decrying the weak effects of antidepressants and dismissing critics for 15 years.

CBS 60 Minutes News on Treating Depression: Sorting Through the Confusion

Is psychotherapy merely a placebo intervention?

Is Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Worthwhile?

All of the studies were conducted by advocates of long-term psychodynamic therapy and that makes all the more surprising the uniformity of the negative results. After all, investigator allegiance is typically a stronger predictor of the outcome of a clinical trial evaluating a psychotherapy than the therapy being evaluated.

Antidepressant, Talk Therapy Fail to Beat Placebo--Really?

If all treatments are equal, why not treat depression with sugar pills rather than expensive psychotherapy or medication?

Oops! Another Flawed, Biased Review Article in British Journal of Psychiatry

Has British Journal of Psychiatry sunk to being an international dumping ground for junk science?

Editor Should Have Caught Bias and Flaws in Review of Mental Health Effects of Abortion

How to Detect Bias and Conflict of Interest in a Meta Analysis of Mental Health Effects of Abortion: A Consumers' Guide

More on Review Claiming Abortion Hurts Women's Mental Health

Why didn’t British Journal of Psychiatry editor catch anti-abortionist author's blatant conflict of interest?

Is Having an Abortion Likely to Damage a Woman's Mental Health?

Anti-choice activist used voodoo science to frighten women about the consequences of abortion for their mental health.

Negative Mental Health Effects of Abortion

Should women be warned of the risk to their mental health from abortion?

Selling the Myth of a National Mental Health Crisis After 9/11/2001

Millions of dollars became available from federal, state, and local sources for mental health services and wild claims about widespread posttraumatic stress helped keep the money coming.

Was There a US Epidemic of Heart Problems After 9/11/2001?

Given the mental health risk they were supposedly facing, should people have turned off their televisions off on 9/11/2001, and immediately gone to see a professional?

After 9/11: The Mental Health Crisis That Never Came

Best evidence shows it is a myth that the events of 9/11/2001 inflicted a collective psychological trauma on the American people with long-lasting effects.

September 11, 2001: Did Americans Suffer Virtual Trauma From Television Coverage?

Did Americans suffer prolonged negative mental and physical effects from viewing of the events of 9/11/201 on television?

More on the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Intervention T

Oops, the article did not tell us that patients died and went to jail and we had a right to know.

Study Did Not Show That Brief Therapy Kept Psychotic Patients Out of Hospital

Peer reviewers missed key details, but it didn't help that the authors failed to disclose suicides and incarcerations after release from the hospital.

Did Brief Psychotherapy Keep Psychotic Mental Patients From Returning to a State Hospital?

Dr. Aaron T. Beck, Quarking Ducks, and Me

"Jim is a tough critic. He circled my herd of ideas like a wolf and picked off the weaker ones. You know, sometimes that kind of thing strengthens the health of the remaining herd."

A Skeptical Look at Claims About a Miraculous Cancer Treatment

Miraculous Cures for Cancer: Too Good to Be True?

Marsha Linehan Reveals Her Borderline Personality Disorder: Must Our Healers Be Wounded?

By publicly disclosing her borderline personality disorder, Dr. Linehan was keeping with a well-established tradition in Western culture of the wounded healer.

Did a Study Really Show that Abstinence Before Marriage Makes for Better Sex Afterwards?

Another hijacking of social science data by the religious right to promote abstinence. If people act morally only because they are lied to, is it still moral behavior.