Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health

By Marty Makary M.D. and Marty Makary

Book Overview

An Instant New York Times Bestseller
Choice 2025 Outstanding Academic Title

From Johns Hopkins medical expert Dr. Marty Makary, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Price We Pay-an eye-opening look at the medical groupthink that has led to public harm, and what you need to know about your health.

More Americans have peanut allergies today than at any point in history. Why? In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a strict recommendation that parents avoid giving their children peanut products until they're three years old. Getting the science perfectly backward, triggering intolerance with lack of early exposure, the US now leads the world in peanut allergies-and this misinformation is still rearing its head today.

How could the experts have gotten it so wrong? Dr. Marty Makary asks, Could it be that many modern-day health crises have been caused by the hubris of the medical establishment? Experts said for decades that opioids were not addictive, igniting the opioid crisis. They refused menopausal women hormone replacement therapy, causing unnecessary suffering. They demonized natural fat in foods, driving Americans to processed carbohydrates as obesity rates soared. They told citizens that there are no downsides to antibiotics and prescribed them liberally, causing a drug-resistant bacteria crisis.

When modern medicine issues recommendations based on good scientific studies, it shines. Conversely, when modern medicine is interpreted through the harsh lens of opinion and edict, it can mold beliefs that harm patients and stunt research for decades. In Blind Spots, Dr. Makary explores the latest research on critical topics ranging from the microbiome to childbirth to nutrition and longevity and more, revealing the biggest blind spots of modern medicine and tackling the most urgent yet unsung issues in our $4.5 trillion health care ecosystem. The path to medical mishaps can be absurd, entertaining, and jaw-dropping-but the truth is essential to our health.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1639735313
• ISBN13: 9781639735310
• Release Date: September 2024
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

My favorite Marty Makary book!

Blind Spots is my favorite Marty Makary book. I loved every chapter, took so many notes, and have already recommended it to several people. It fascinated me, challenged assumptions I hadn’t thought to question, and gave me ideas that reach well beyond healthcare. I was especially interested in his discussions of peanut allergy prevention, hormone replacement therapy for women, antibiotic use, the opioid crisis, and nutrition. These are subjects many of us encounter in our own lives, often trusting that the recommendations we hear have been thoroughly examined. Reading Makary’s account of how certain beliefs became established—and how difficult they could be to reconsider—was compelling and, at times, frustrating. I kept thinking about how much depends on people being willing to ask questions and take those questions seriously. What I appreciated most was his emphasis on curiosity, evidence, and civil discourse. His invitation to examine what we believe, why we believe it, and how we respond to information that challenges us really stayed with me. It is easy to recognize closed-mindedness in someone else. It takes more humility to notice when we are dismissing something because it doesn’t fit our own understanding. I loved that the book gave me so much to reflect on personally. In many ways, this felt like a book about leadership, too. The passages about self-awareness, humility, and giving new ideas a fair hearing were among my favorites. There is something powerful about a leader who welcomes questions and accepts that a past achievement or decision may eventually need to be reconsidered. Creating room for people to challenge an idea thoughtfully is such an essential part of learning and making progress. That message reached me at a particularly meaningful time professionally. I have been thinking a lot about how asking for clarity can be interpreted as “pushing back,” even when the intention is to understand a decision or make something better. This book helped me put words to why those questions matter. It also reminded me that the willingness to reconsider has to go both ways: I want my questions to be heard, and I need to remain open to having my own thinking challenged. Makary’s writing makes all of this so accessible. The medical subjects never felt intimidating or like something I needed a clinical background to understand. I stayed engaged because the explanations were clear and the questions felt relevant. Every chapter gave me something I wanted to highlight, discuss, or think about further. I finished Blind Spots feeling informed, energized, and eager to keep learning. It is a book I will return to for its ideas about curiosity and leadership as much as its exploration of medicine. An enthusiastic five stars, and one I would highly recommend.

Infuriating

Anyone in health care who thinks for himself will recognize the sheer arrogance of the medical community in starting and perpetuating myths that go against common sense and good medicine as discussed in this work.