It has been a privilege to write for Insight+ for the past 12 years, exploring this rich vein. Thank you to everyone who has read and engaged with what I have written.
WHAT do Gwyneth Paltrow’s jade vaginal eggs, Socrates’ wisdom and Jesus’ multiple foreskins have in common?
They’ve all appeared in columns I’ve written for Insight+, and I couldn’t resist giving them one last outing in this, my final column for the publication.
When Insight+ founding editor Brad McLean asked me in 2010 to write a regular column for the new digital publication he was establishing for the MJA, I don’t think any of us imagined I’d end up doing it for 12 years. .
For the first issue, I wrote about inadequate funding for mental health (some things never change).
At the time, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd faced a barrage of criticism for it, including the public resignation of his chief adviser on the issue, Professor John Mendoza.
Unusually, the Australian of the Year at the time was a psychiatrist, Professor Patrick McGorry, who had also been outspoken in his criticism.
“Rudd must have wondered why he had given the honor to a psychiatrist instead of insisting on a cricketer,” I wrote at the time.
Professor McGorry told me that the Prime Minister had summoned him to Canberra for a meeting. He was hoping for some sort of peace offer, but instead he saw the Prime Minister lose his job to Julia Gillard.
I’ve written hundreds of columns since then, covering health policy, ethics, new technology, research integrity, and just about every variety of quackery you can imagine.
From colloidal silver, to black salves, to Miracle Mineral Solution (aka bleach), to a certain actor’s jade eggs; there has never been a lack of people seeking to exploit the gullible.
Several of the columns have been selected for The Best Australian Science Writing annual anthology, including pieces on the power of placebos, scaremongering about the harmful impact of digital devices (that’s where Socrates appeared), supposed dangers of the coffee, the shame. history of medical “treatments” for homosexuality and the unrecognized non-Western pioneers of immunization.
The columns, however, did not receive the positive acclaim of each quarter. I regularly annoyed homeopaths and other fans of alternative treatments, and I didn’t recruit many followers among those who campaigned against abortion rights or rejected the scientific consensus on climate change.
The extreme fringes of the anti-vaccine movement were particularly scathing in their criticism whenever he wrote about immunization.
Hilariously, there was an attempt to get the Healthcare Complaints Commission to investigate my work at one point. A little less amusing was the apparent death threat I received in the mail in 2021 in response to my writings about COVID-19 vaccines.
“We believe that the crimes you are involved in are acts of genocide,” the anonymous authors wrote.
It’s ironic that perhaps the most outrage I’ve ever caused was from a column calling for moderation in discussions of child circumcision. They were five-step guns thrown in the comments section on that one.
And, in case you were wondering, yes, that was the column that mentioned the sacred foreskins of Jesus.
Not everything has been fun. There were columns covering the failures of the health care system, the neglect of vulnerable populations, the counterproductive war on illegal drugs, the catastrophic wildfires of 2019-20 and, of course, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In late 2020, I wrote an unusually personal column, as the death of my pediatrician father made me reflect on the changes he saw in a career that began in the middle of the last century.
Medicine is one of the great achievements of our creative and inquiring minds. It encompasses some of the best qualities of our species, along with the darker attributes that overshadow any human endeavour.
There is compassion, courage and truth in medical stories, but also sometimes prejudice, arrogance and hypocrisy. As a subject, it offers endless possibilities for a writer.
It has been a privilege to write for Insight+ for the past 12 years, exploring this rich vein. Thank you to everyone who has read and engaged with what I have written.
In keeping with the spirit of this column, I’ll leave you with one last look at quackery and pseudoscience, in this case the much-touted detox.
Jane McCredie is a health and science writer based in Sydney.
Statements or opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official policy of the AMA, the MJA, or InSight+ unless otherwise noted.
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