You Simply MUST ‘Do Your Own Research’

I am a big believer in the division of labor. It is one of the secrets to a well-functioning and prosperous society. 

Adam Smith’s explanation of the concept using a pin factory as an example captured the idea beautifully: if a single person were assigned the job of making a pin, he could produce perhaps one pin a day. Create a process with 10 people doing separate jobs to make pins, and you can make tens of thousands in a day. 

Theoretically, this idea works especially well in complicated tasks requiring expertise, and medicine certainly fits the bill in that respect. All other things being equal, we shouldn’t be our own doctors, surgeons, or physical therapists. An experienced doctor can notice patterns that we would miss ourselves and has a deeper appreciation for the complexity of biological processes and how they interact. He can glance at a series of blood tests and, more often than not, understand whether a test result is worrying or just normal variation. 

In light of all that, why on Earth would I say that whenever things go wrong, or when you want to address something before it does, you simply must “do your own research?”

Simple: as miraculous as modern medicine is, the discipline is still in its infancy, filled with poor research, fads, conflicts of interest, and even the best doctors cannot keep up with all the various studies — even good ones — that may contradict received wisdom. 

This is most obvious in nutrition “science,” which is almost as bad as any social science out there. The average nutrition study you read makes polling in Senate primaries look like sound science.

It’s not that there is NO decent science out there; rather, the low hanging fruit is long since harvested and what we learned was very basic. Biological systems such as our own bodies are immensely complicated and getting beyond simple univariate questions is nearly impossible on human timescales. 

Sure, we can learn the importance of iodine for thyroid function and folic acid for fetal development, but even simple questions such as “how good or bad is saturated fat for you?” are still largely unsettled because there probably is not strict answer to the question — there are too many other variables involved, up to and including “what exactly is a saturated fat” and how are you ingesting it?

All this gets even more complicated when you are addressing an acute medical issue, such as contracting the flu or another virus or infection. For years people have been given Tamiflu to treat influenza, especially when they are especially vulnerable to death due to other health conditions. 

It became a “thing,” with doctors prescribing it prolifically and the government stockpiling it as a vital medicine. The shine came off of it, and it lost some popularity, but it still gets used, especially to treat people at particularly great risk from the flu, despite it being dangerous in its own right. 

Congratulations to the @remap_cap investigators for conducting this important clinical trial, which will undoubtedly change clinical practice and treatment guidelines (or at least it should). Free link in first reply. @NEJM pic.twitter.com/LPADDUQkus

— Paul Sax (@PaulSaxMD) August 18, 2026

Unfortunately, as studies have continued to be done, it’s become clear that it doesn’t confer any survival benefit to patients, and may in fact make things worse, killing more people than it may save. While it can reduce the time span between the onset of symptoms and their resolution, it’s not by much, and you risk the side effects of the drug doing you more harm than the flu you are treating. 

Hard benefits in outpatients have been overstated and oversold too.

You get better about 17 hours faster. You trade that for ~ 1 in 6 chance for vomiting

Keep you out of hospital? Too small effect size to detect (if it even exists)https://t.co/bpoSonC3Ym

— Todd C. Lee (@DrToddLee) August 19, 2026

Theoretically, a doctor who reads journals all day every day and does the mental math assiduously can incorporate all the various research on all the manifold diseases and conditions, treatments, and warnings, and be more reliable than you in all cases when dealing with whatever health issue you may be facing. 

But, seriously, that ain’t gonna happen. Not because your doctor is subpar — at least half of us have doctors who are above average, and if you are lucky, you have a really great doctor who you should listen to on daily health management and treatments — but rather because he or she is likely treating over 1500 patients with thousands of potential health conditions and also has a life. 

Roche sold about $20 billion of this killer drug

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) August 19, 2026

Most of the time that isn’t a problem — in fact, it’s a bonus. He has likely seen it all, or almost all, and has enough experience to provide satisfactory solutions to the basic issues we all face. Most hoofprints are horses, not zebras, after all, and you want the guy who knows horses. 

But when you are facing a health crisis or a chronic condition that requires personalized management, keeping up with the research and being skeptical of received wisdom — and of new studies with exciting results! — will serve you better than just doing what you are told without asking questions. 

That doesn’t mean you should dispense with your doctor’s advice, of course. But it does mean you can go in armed with the right questions, poke holes in received wisdom when necessary, and come out of the office with a better plan of action or at least a better understanding of why you are doing what you are told. 

If there is anything that we should have learned from the see-sawing of nutrition advice in our lifetimes, the various scandals of drugs that do harms, the completely bogus claims about COVID, its prevention and its treatments, it’s that we need to use our own brains as much as possible when decisions have a big impact on our lives and lifespans. 

I’m not a health nut by any measure, and generally speaking don’t go in for fads. But I have direct experience with having more data at my disposal than my doctor does due to tracking some basic body measurements, and have helped design my drug regimen by leveraging that data and basic understanding of the pharmaceuticals I am using. 

Of course, there’s a danger that you may wind up thinking you know more than you do, but that is a flaw in HOW you do your research, not THAT you did it. You should always be skeptical because experience shows that biological research is pretty unreliable and easy to overinterpret. That’s why you get bandwagons like Tamiflu in the first place. 

Chances are that your doctor may roll his eyes a bit when you start peppering him or her with questions; he’s as worried about your being captured by a fad as you are that he has been. But if you are knowledgeable and respectful, he will get over that worry. 

If not, find another doctor. 

Editor’s Note: The Democrat Party has been infected by socialism, and it’s spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there’s nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.

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