Understanding Medical Research

April 26, 2021

Information

April 25, 2021

Yale Cancer Center

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00:00Support for Yale Cancer Answers
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00:10More information at astrazeneca-us.com.
00:14Welcome to Yale Cancer Answers with
00:16your host doctor Anees Chagpar.
00:18Yale Cancer Answers features the
00:20latest information on cancer care by
00:22welcoming oncologists and specialists
00:24who are on the forefront of the
00:26battle to fight cancer. This week,
00:28it's a conversation about understanding
00:30medical research with Doctor Perry Wilson.
00:32Doctor Wilson is the course director of
00:35Interpretation of the medical literature
00:36at the Yale School of Medicine,
00:38where Doctor Chagpar is a
00:41professor of surgical oncology.
00:43Perry, maybe we can start off by you
00:46telling us a little bit about yourself
00:48and what it is that you do.
00:51I'm a physician,
00:53and I specialize in internal
00:55medicine and nephrology,
00:56which is kidney diseases.
00:57But most of my time is spent
00:59doing clinical research.
01:01So my lab does clinical trials.
01:03We use a lot of what people
01:05might call big data approaches.
01:07Getting data and analysis into
01:09the electronic health record,
01:11but I think one of my real passions has been
01:14trying to explain medical
01:16research to everyone.
01:17It's something that I love to do.
01:20I love medical research.
01:21I think it's
01:23transformed humanity over the
01:24past century and I want to share
01:27that enthusiasm with people.
01:29And so I've been, on my
01:31off hours, writing columns
01:33about new medical studies trying
01:36to get people as excited as I am
01:39about the medical research process.
01:41And that's such a great
01:43thing to kick off with because,
01:46especially this year,
01:47there's been a lot of
01:50misinformation,
01:51a lot of ambiguity,
01:52a lot of trepidation on the part of
01:55the general public about medical research,
01:58so maybe you can start off by talking
02:01to us a little bit about how that
02:04misinformation gets propagated
02:06and what we can do about it.
02:09Sure, Covid has really turned
02:11up the level of medical misinformation.
02:13It's always been out there.
02:16It's even before the Internet there were
02:19people coming through
02:21with their patent medicines and
02:23tonics and trying to force
02:25something in a vial on an unsuspecting
02:28population that will always be there.
02:30There will always be people trying to
02:33make a buck from fake information,
02:35but as the Internet exploded and access
02:38to information became more available
02:40as social media exploded and the sharing
02:42of information became
02:44exponentially easier and then now with covid,
02:46it was really this perfect storm of medical
02:48information that we were
02:50all hit with.
02:52It was the first time I can remember
02:54where literally everyone was
02:55searching for the same thing on line
02:57when it comes to medical studies.
02:59So before covid,
03:00you had people that were
03:02looking for the latest diet that
03:03would help them lose a few pounds.
03:05And then
03:06of course you had people who might
03:08have had a new diagnosis like a
03:10new cancer diagnosis for example,
03:12and they're searching that.
03:13And there's misinformation in
03:15all those spaces,
03:16but all of a sudden 2020 comes and every
03:18single person is searching for any
03:21information they can find about covid.
03:23And in that environment you are
03:25going to get a lot of misinformation
03:27out there. And that's exactly what happened.
03:30But you know, Perry,
03:31it's really interesting because for
03:33many people they think the Internet
03:35was really the boon of information
03:37sharing and a great way for people
03:39to get high quality information and
03:41disseminate it across a large population.
03:44So I think one of the key issues is how do
03:47people distinguish from good information
03:49factual information versus misinformation.
03:52Both of them seem to be
03:54apparent on the Internet,
03:56but sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.
03:59Yeah, absolutely.
03:59And this is
04:01one of the double edged
04:03swords of our information age.
04:05So one thing I always remind
04:07people is that there is such a thing
04:11as a bad medical study. There is
04:13good data and bad data.
04:16There are good studies and bad studies,
04:19and when access to that information
04:21is so readily available so unfiltered
04:23or sometimes just filtered through
04:25the sort of biases of whoever's on
04:27your social media feed, it
04:29has become really easy to
04:31find information that confirms
04:33your previously held beliefs,
04:34and if there is one thing I sort
04:37of caution people against when they
04:40go looking for information is,
04:42do it with an open mind.
04:44Don't try to find things that confirm
04:46what you already believe to be true,
04:48because maybe that worked back in
04:50the day when you went into the
04:52encyclopedia and everything was
04:53sort of nicely laid out and had
04:55been vetted by an editorial board
04:57and things like that.
04:59But the problem with social media is
05:01similar beliefs cluster together. The
05:03social media algorithms on Twitter
05:06and Facebook and Instagram and all of
05:08the social media companies work the same way.
05:10They are designed to maximize engagement,
05:13which is eyeballs on the screen,
05:15clicks, likes,
05:16retweets etc.
05:16In that environment,
05:17things that are nuanced that are
05:20subtle that don't sort of confirm
05:22what people want to be true don't
05:24get a lot of engagement,
05:26and those things that are more
05:29exciting and dramatic,
05:31we've got a cure for covid in
05:33our medicine chest right now.
05:35It gets a ton of engagement and one
05:37of the things that we used to be
05:40able to do as humans was trust
05:42what we perceive as the majority opinion
05:44when a lot of people share an opinion,
05:47we would go around in our social lives
05:49and say, oh that's probably true.
05:52Most people sort of think this,
05:54and I've heard this from a number
05:56of people in social media,
05:58now it's possible to go down a rabbit
06:00hole of misinformation where every
06:01voice you see every link you click is
06:04reinforcing the false information.
06:06And what you then get is this
06:08erroneous perception that there's
06:10this wealth of data out there
06:12that's supporting your belief,
06:14when in fact it's all this
06:17self perpetuating engagement,
06:18and you've got to be able to
06:21get out of there.
06:23The easiest way is right off the bat,
06:26be honest with yourself.
06:27Ask yourself what you want to be true,
06:30and recognize that if you find data
06:33that supports what you want to be true,
06:36you even have to be extra
06:39skeptical about that type of
06:41data.
06:43I just finished reading Adam Grant's book,
06:46Think Again, which for if anybody is
06:49a big fan of Adam Grant or enjoys
06:53reading organizational psychologists,
06:54I highly recommend it.
06:56But it's exactly to your point about
06:59rethinking your biases.
07:02But you know Perry,
07:03it's really difficult, right?
07:05Because if you are looking for something,
07:07something appears to be true,
07:09it fits with your gut,
07:13you're more likely to
07:14think that that's right,
07:16so are there any objective ways
07:18for example,
07:18if patients or the people
07:21who are listening to our show today,
07:24they may have just been
07:26diagnosed with cancer,
07:27or they may be looking for other
07:30medical information and it's
07:31so easy to go to the Internet.
07:33Information at our fingertips.
07:35Are there any ways that you can
07:38really distinguish, intangible ways,
07:40Igood information versus garbage?
07:45There certainly are and it
07:47does take a
07:50little bit of work and
07:52it's the hardest thing in the
07:55world to disregard information
07:56that feels right to you.
07:58That speaks to you in that way because
08:01that is a very human thing that we all do.
08:05But I can
08:07give you a couple of tips.
08:09So number one,
08:11is that biologic plausibility
08:13is only the start of
08:14medical research, not the end,
08:16and what I mean by biologic
08:18plausibility is when something is
08:20stated that makes sense biologically.
08:24To give you an example,
08:25if I told you that if
08:29I wrapped my necktie around my head, it would
08:32help the arthritis in my knees,
08:34that's not biologically plausible.
08:36There's no real reason to
08:38think that that should work,
08:39so we don't pay much attention to that.
08:42But there are lots of examples
08:44of things that seem
08:46biologically plausible, for example,
08:47we know that as you age,
08:49there's more oxidative stress in your
08:52body and that oxidative stress might
08:54lead to some of the symptoms of aging
08:57like arthritis and stuff.
08:59We also have a chemical called
09:01vitamin E which is an antioxidant,
09:03and well reported as an antioxidant.
09:05It's biologically plausible,
09:06then that vitamin E would be
09:09good at helping against aging.
09:11Maybe might prevent heart
09:12attacks and things like that.
09:14Now a lot of people stop there.
09:17They say, oh that's biologically plausible.
09:19Oxidation is bad,
09:20antioxidant is good, vitamin E
09:21is cheap, it's at my drugstore.
09:23There's very limited side effects.
09:24You know this is great.
09:26It helps to confirm a belief that
09:28many of us want to be true that we
09:30can take charge of our lives without
09:33paying pharmaceutical companies and
09:34without having side effects.
09:36So there's a lot going for vitamin E,
09:38but let me tell you what
09:40happened with Vitamin E.
09:41They did a randomized trial of vitamin
09:43E and people who are at risk of heart
09:46disease and actually found not only
09:47was there no difference in
09:49the rate of heart attacks,
09:51the people taking vitamin
09:52E compared to placebo,
09:53but the people taking vitamin E
09:55had more heart failure.
09:57Statistically more heart failure than
09:58those taking placebo and again and again
10:01in medicine
10:01we see biologic plausibility,
10:03and actual efficacy getting untied.
10:04So what I tell people is that
10:07biologically plausible thing that you
10:08read about, like oh this is interesting,
10:11it works in cell culture,
10:13the mice seem to respond to this
10:15and it all sort of makes sense
10:17with how we understand the world,
10:19that's great, but that's only the beginning.
10:21You really want to see that randomized trial,
10:23not because
10:25I'm the kind of guy who
10:28I'm just following the rules and
10:29everything needs a randomized trial,
10:31it's because we've been burned
10:33so many times before,
10:34and I think that's what people don't realize.
10:36It's not like jumping
10:37through an arbitrary hoop.
10:38We've been wrong a lot when it
10:40comes to biologic plausibility,
10:42so I really do tell people
10:43we want a randomized trial.
10:45And if you want to be really sure you're not
10:48swallowing some patent medicine,
10:50you want to see a replication of that study.
10:52You want to see more than one study
10:54showing the same thing and ideally
10:57studies done by different people.
10:58You know different groups across the country
11:00or in different countries in the world.
11:02That's how you build an evidence base.
11:05And of course,
11:05that's what doctors jobs are, right?
11:07So one of the easiest things you
11:09can do if you have a trusted
11:11healthcare provider in your life,
11:13it is our job to be doing this and
11:16ask them. Talk to them.
11:18We're often excited to talk to you
11:21about what's real and what's not,
11:23and again,
11:24just hear it with an
11:26open mind.
11:28In terms of the information of looking
11:30for randomized control trials,
11:32especially that are all
11:34going in the same direction,
11:36because we've all seen randomized
11:38control trials that then are disproven
11:40by other randomized control trials.
11:43But you know, Perry,
11:44it's so difficult for the general
11:46public to actually access good
11:48randomized control trials.
11:50They're not really going to pubMed and
11:53searching the medical literature and
11:55looking at things with a critical eye.
11:58And in terms of talking to their doctor,
12:01that's certainly a great way to start.
12:03But there are also quote doctors
12:05who you can find on line who
12:08are spewing misinformation.
12:09So how do you kind of get around that?
12:13You've got to be careful,
12:16really anything that comes from social media,
12:19whether it's YouTube or Twitter.
12:21And hey, I'm on Twitter,
12:22but you do have to be careful
12:24because of the echo chamber effect.
12:27Someone can sort of wear the mantle of
12:29authority on social media based on sort
12:32of the number of followers and stuff
12:34that they have and that might make what
12:37they're saying seem more believable,
12:39when in fact it's not.
12:40And so you know, social media is fun.
12:43And interesting and a great
12:45place to share pictures.
12:46It's not where I recommend
12:48people do their research
12:49for medical questions.
12:50There are some absolutely wonderful
12:52medical reporters out there.
12:53So if you don't want to read the
12:57primary literature and
12:59pick up your copy of the New
13:01England Journal Medicine,
13:02there's some great science and
13:04medicine reporters out there.
13:05You want to look for reporters
13:07that that's their beat.
13:09Because of the slow death
13:11of the newspaper industry in America
13:14you get a lot of times the
13:16science and health, and
13:17even sports reporters are all
13:19the same person in some outlets.
13:20So you want to look for someone whose
13:22job is to write about health and medicine.
13:25They are often very well trained
13:27and are good nuanced
13:28and if you're
13:29reading about a new drug,
13:31a new treatment, you want to read
13:33from a couple of different people.
13:38There's some great writing,
13:39for example, in the Atlantic,
13:41the science section of the New York
13:43Times has always been very strong.
13:44Do they get it right 100% of the time?
13:47No,
13:48but that's why you look for other articles.
13:51That being said,
13:52it is not impossible for laypeople to
13:54go into the real medical literature and
13:57in fact I have a course
13:59online here at Yale,
14:00which is free called
14:02Understanding Medical Research:
14:03Your Facebook friend is wrong.
14:04It's on the Coursera platform you
14:07can search for it and basically
14:09it is an online course of 15
14:11minute lectures that you can watch
14:13over your lunch break
14:15where I teach you how to find a
14:17actual medical article,
14:18go to pub Med and how to find it,
14:21how to read it,
14:22and how to interpret the results.
14:24So if any of the listeners
14:26really want to get deep into this,
14:28really want to take that next step
14:30to understanding medical research.
14:31it's accessible you don't need
14:33a degree in chemistry.
14:34You don't need to remember calculus,
14:36you just need some logical thinking skills,
14:38and intuition so a little pitch for that course. It's free.
14:40And it's so
14:42important for people really to
14:44do your own research and be
14:46vigilant about it so that you're not
14:49taking other people's word for it.
14:50You're going to the source and
14:52knowing how to interpret that.
14:54We're going to take a short
14:55break for a medical minute,
14:57but please stay tuned to learn
14:59more about understanding medical
15:00research with my guest Doctor
15:02Perry Wilson.
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15:11Learn more at astrazeneca-us.com.
15:15This is a medical minute about
15:18survivorship. Completing treatment for
15:20cancer is a very exciting milestone,
15:22but cancer and its treatment can be a life
15:25changing experience for cancer survivors.
15:28The return to normal activities and
15:31relationships can be difficult and
15:33some survivors face long term side
15:35effects resulting from their treatment,
15:37including heart problems,
15:39osteoporosis, fertility issues and
15:40an increased risk of second cancers.
15:43Resources are available to help
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15:49More information is available
15:51at yalecancercenter.org.
15:52You're listening to Connecticut Public Radio.
15:56Welcome back to Yale Cancer Answers.
15:59This is doctor Anees Chagpar
16:01and I'm joined tonight by my guest
16:03doctor Perry Wilson and we're talking about
16:06understanding medical research.
16:08Perry, before the break
16:11we were talking about how much misinformation
16:13really is out there on the Internet,
16:16whether it's about covid or whether
16:18it's about cancer or whether
16:20it's about any topic really,
16:22whether it's medical or not.
16:24There is just so much misinformation
16:27that's propagated out there.
16:29So let's talk a little bit about some
16:32of the ways that we can mitigate that.
16:35You know, aside from being vigilant
16:38consumers of medical research,
16:40what else can be done to really
16:43kind of tamp down on all of the
16:46misinformation that's out there?
16:50This is a really hard problem
16:53that it's clear a lot of the social
16:56media companies are struggling with.
16:58As you know you see Facebook and Twitter
17:02for example, imposing essentially
17:03fact checking on some tweets,
17:05particularly surrounding hot button issues.
17:08For example, vaccination
17:10where they're literally
17:12blocking tweets, blocking posts that are
17:14construed by some of their
17:17moderators to be potentially anti VAX,
17:19for example this does
17:20strike some people as
17:22heavy handed.
17:23There are certainly concerns about
17:25is this going to have a chilling
17:27effect on speech?
17:29On the other side, people say that
17:31these are private companies that
17:33can do whatever they want
17:35within the confines of their own platform.
17:38It strikes me though,
17:39that it's a bit of whack-a-mole
17:41and that these efforts
17:43are reactive rather than proactive.
17:45What can we do to be more proactive?
17:48One of the things I've
17:50seen that's a little clever
17:52is Twitter has been generating a little
17:54pop up when you retweet an article
17:57if it notes that you haven't
17:59actually read the article.
18:05That's a whole other topic, right?
18:07Like how it knows
18:09whether you've opened the other
18:10you didn't look at the article,
18:12but I think what it's doing is
18:14the article will have a tweet with a link
18:21and it knows if you've clicked that
18:23link 'cause it's within Twitter.
18:25If you haven't and you click retweet,
18:27it's been saying, hey,
18:30do you want to maybe read this
18:32article before you retweet it?
18:35That is an interesting strategy because
18:37it takes the emotion slightly down.
18:39There's a tendency for people
18:41to share and retweet things that
18:43are emotionally activating.
18:45Whether they make you angry
18:46or make you happy.
18:48Whether it's a mama cat
18:50cuddling with baby kittens,
18:52or whether it's someone saying
18:55something terrible and caught on tape.
18:57Both of those strong reactions
18:59elicit a lot of engagement and
19:00trying to remove that a little bit,
19:02giving people a little extra time to say, wait
19:05do you really want to put this out there?
19:08Do you want to share this?
19:09Might help a little bit.
19:13My hope lies a lot with
19:15the younger generations.
19:16Honestly,
19:17who are growing up in this
19:18environment and in my opinion,
19:20are actually quite a bit more savvy.
19:23I agree with you.
19:24I think that even our patients who come in,
19:27many times the older
19:30generation sometimes will have heard
19:32things like sugar feeds cancer or
19:35it can stop all cancer and some of our
19:39younger patients or patients families,
19:42it's remarkable they will have gone
19:45to the literature and be quizzing
19:48you on the latest study that was
19:51published in the New England Journal
19:53or what just came out at ASCO.
19:56So it really does behoove us to
20:00be wary of what's out there now.
20:04Are there certain places where
20:06people should go to kind of look
20:09at the literature if they don't go
20:12to pubMed directly and again,
20:14your course will tell them how they can
20:17actually go to the primary literature,
20:20but are there certain websites
20:22that you think are
20:24generally pretty reliable versus
20:27kind of taking the latest weird
20:29theory that's out there?
20:32As I mentioned,
20:33some of the large news organizations
20:36that have dedicated science
20:37writers are a great tool,
20:39but if you really want dedicated sites,
20:43there's a couple of good sites,
20:45Medscape.com, andfFull disclosure,
20:47I have a weekly column on medscape.com
20:50but Medscape.com is a medical news website.
20:53It's an offshoot of WebMD which
20:55actually does a very nice job.
20:58They have dedicated reporters covering
21:00the latest medical studies,
21:01which is quite good, stat.com,
21:03which is another medical news focused
21:05website is quite good and
21:08as you're exploring there
21:10are other sites as well.
21:12And when you're exploring a site,
21:15I think one of the real hints as
21:18you're reading through as a reader to
21:21know about the quality here is
21:24look for emotion in the writing and if
21:27there is too much be worried.
21:30Real medical reading is often not
21:32the most exciting thing.
21:34This is not Hemingway.
21:35This is reporting on often nuanced
21:38medical studies and drugs that have
21:40some benefit but some risks.
21:43And if your reporting is expressive of that,
21:46then it's good reporting, latest
21:49breakthrough, Miracle Cure, New Silver Bullet.
21:52The end of blank diseases in sight.
21:54These highly emotional headlines are
21:56a good red flag that you're not on a
22:00site that's taking this very seriously.
22:02I mean it goes back to the old
22:05adage of if it sounds too good to be true,
22:09it likely is, and so I'll add to your list.
22:12I think that there are some
22:15good professional organizations
22:16that people can turn to.
22:19ASCO has some websites that are dedicated
22:23to patient information, cancer.net,
22:25for example, the American Cancer Society.
22:28Cancer.org has some great information
22:31and there are a variety of associations
22:36for whatever cancer my ail you,
22:39whether it's breast cancer or leukemia
22:43or colon and rectal cancer.
22:48Go to the
22:49organizations that are really
22:51doing the research into this,
22:53because very often they will
22:55publish that data and a good hint
22:58is to look for the footnotes,
23:00because very often they will lead you
23:02to the studies and to the literature
23:05that they're citing in making the
23:08claim that they they have so and so.
23:10We have some of that data for
23:14cancer, and I think that
23:17because cancer has been around
23:19for a long time,
23:20a lot of the misinformation now I think it's
23:24starting to die down. There still are some
23:26old wives tales out there like
23:29sugar feeds cancer or tumeric
23:31will cure all cancers.
23:33PS for our listeners,
23:35neither of those two statements are true.
23:38But for novel diseases,
23:40things like Covid, it's a lot harder.
23:43I think for people,
23:44especially initially to weed
23:46out some of that misinformation.
23:48So what are some of the misinformation
23:51hot buttons that you found
23:53out there that are propagated
23:55that you'd like to dispel?
23:58Oh my
23:58gosh, Covid has really given
24:01those of us who like to correct
24:04the record in Medicine a lot to do.
24:06It's been a full time job in Covid
24:08and I think in part it gets back to
24:11that idea of motivated reasoning.
24:14We all hate this pandemic.
24:16Every single one of us wants
24:18nothing more than for it to be over,
24:21and if there were some simple cure
24:23that was cheap and effective and
24:25worked 100% of the time oh my gosh,
24:28it would be amazing.
24:29We all want that and so you
24:31had this proliferation of data
24:33coming out early in Covid
24:35and I think that's sort of prototypical.
24:37One was the study surrounding
24:39Hydroxychloroquine which
24:40is an anti-malarial drug
24:41that's also used for lupus,
24:43which is an autoimmune disease.
24:44An old drug that with a lot of
24:47experience with and the truth is
24:49relatively safe as some drugs go,
24:51although there can be risks of cardiac
24:53arrhythmias in people who take it,
24:54but it's not
24:56the most toxic drug in the world,
24:58and some early studies,
25:0010-20 people suggested that maybe
25:02they get a little better faster now.
25:04Skip ahead and I'll tell you that large
25:06clinical trials have been done
25:08now I think we're at 9 or 10 large
25:10clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine.
25:12All of them negative.
25:15That's fairly well confirmed,
25:16but initially there was this
25:18huge enthusiasm surrounding it.
25:20And to the point where you know
25:22people were stockpiling the
25:24stuff people were taking it,
25:26and I think it fed what we wanted to believe,
25:29which was that there was a solution.
25:32And unfortunately the truth
25:35it's rare that things work that well.
25:37It's just unlikely that no
25:39matter what comes down the pipe,
25:41the cure is going to be something
25:43in your medicine cabinet that
25:45just doesn't happen very often.
25:47The exception being maybe
25:48like scurvy and vitamin C,
25:50and even that took a randomized trial
25:52to figure out back on the high seas.
25:55So that was certainly a big one.
25:59What's more concerning,
26:00I think even then the medication stuff
26:02is the vaccination issues in covid,
26:04so these are new vaccines.
26:06A lot of vaccine hesitancy at baseline
26:08kind of brought up to a degree by
26:10the fact that there are some new
26:12technologies in these vaccines,
26:14like MRNA technology,
26:15which I will point out,
26:17is new in the sense that we've never
26:19done it broadscale treatment with it,
26:22but is not new.
26:23It's actually been in clinical
26:25use for more than a decade now,
26:27but still new stuff for people,
26:29and we're seeing a lot of misinformation
26:31about what is in the vaccine,
26:33how the trials were done.
26:34I was reading on social media that
26:37people were saying that the trials
26:39were inoculating their volunteers with
26:41Covid when they walked through the door,
26:43which is a trial design
26:45that is quite controversial
26:47and is not what happened in these
26:49large clinical trials.
26:51And the problem of course with this
26:54misinformation is that this really does hurt
26:57our ability to end this pandemic, because
26:59the vaccines are the best tools we have.
27:04There's lots of misinformation
27:05around masks as well.
27:07You still see posts saying that
27:09masks reduce your blood oxygen content
27:11or increase the carbon dioxide content.
27:13You're a surgeon.
27:14My wife is a surgeon.
27:15She is wearing a mask for
27:178 hours a day, every day,
27:19and her oxygen level is perfectly fine.
27:21She doesn't get lung disease or
27:23infections that's still out there,
27:24and it really does
27:25hurt our ability
27:27to end the pandemic faster.
27:28We're kind of shooting ourselves
27:30in the foot with this stuff.
27:32The other big
27:34piece of misinformation, I
27:35was watching the news the other
27:37day and they were saying that
27:3933% of Americans that
27:42were surveyed in this one poll
27:46felt that Covid was not real.
27:49And you kind of shake your head and
27:51you say we're now over half a million
27:54people dead in this country of a
27:56disease that you think is not real.
28:01And for people, including myself,
28:02and I'm sure you as well have cared for
28:05these patients in the hospital that
28:06it's particularly painful to hear that.
28:09And of course, some of us have
28:11lost loved ones to the disease.
28:13But you know, again
28:14I'm trying to do my best to
28:16understand where this comes from,
28:18and I do think it comes
28:20from a place of desire.
28:22Why do people believe that it's not real?
28:24Because they don't want it to be real,
28:26and if we just ask people,
28:28be aware of your motivations
28:30and be skeptical of data that only
28:33confirms what you want to be true,
28:35people will be in good shape.
28:37Doctor Perry Wilson is the course
28:39director of Interpretation of the medical
28:41literature at the Yale School of Medicine.
28:44If you have questions,
28:45the address is canceranswers@yale.edu
28:47and past editions of the program
28:49are available in audio and written
28:51form at yalecancercenter.org.
28:52We hope you'll join us next week to
28:55learn more about the fight against
28:57cancer here on Connecticut Public Radio.