I know the pandemic is winding down when I see ‘science influencers,’ ‘debunkers’ and the‘misinformation police’ return to focusing on issues that match their skill set: debunking vitamins, supplements, cupping, homeopathy, electric fields and other clearly unproven and implausible medical interventions.
Previously, John Horigan called these the ‘soft targets’. He drew a distinction between non-mainstream, biologically-implausible interventions promoted by random individuals on the internet (soft targets) and the unproven interventions that pervade traditional medicine, and are sold based on exaggerated or distorted data (e.g. stenting stable coronary disease, or the use of aortic balloon pumps, selenexor in combination with velcade and dex, etc. etc.). These are the hard targets. They constitute the larger, more pervasive and caustic misuse of medical spending, often involving insurers to reallocate society’s resources rather than personal spending choices.