Do You Believe in Magic? Quotes

“On January 18, 1897, Indiana state representative Taylor I. Record argued in favor of changing the value of pi. Pi, which can be rounded to 3.14159, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Tyler believed that the number was inconveniently long; in House Bill 246, he asked that it be rounded up to 3.2. The bill passed the House but was defeated in the Senate when the chairman of Purdue University’s math department successfully pleaded that it would make Indiana a national laughingstock. The value of pi in Indiana remains the same as in every other state.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“Subjects were given vitamin E, beta-carotene, both, or neither. The results were clear: those taking vitamins and supplements were more likely to die from lung cancer or heart disease than those who didn’t take them—the opposite of what researchers had anticipated.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“At least fifteen studies have now shown that vitamin C doesn’t treat the common cold.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“On October 10, 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn’t. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer. “It’s been a tough week for vitamins,” said Carrie Gann of ABC News. These findings weren’t new. Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“On October 10, 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn’t. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer.”
― Paul A. Offit M.D., Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“Nothing is more dangerous than science without poetry or technical progress without emotional content,” wrote Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a German philosopher.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“Because the dietary supplement industry is essentially unregulated, only 170 (0.3 percent) of the 54,000 products on the market have documented safety tests.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“The concept of multivitamins was sold to Americans by an eager nutraceutical industry to generate profits. There was never any scientific data supporting their usage.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine

“In 1999, Emily Rosa published her paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was titled “A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch.” Unlike Mehmet Oz, Rosa wasn’t a cardiovascular surgeon. In fact, she had never graduated from medical school. Or college. Or high school. Or elementary school. When it came time to write her paper, she had asked her mother, a nurse, to help. That’s because Emily was only nine years old. Her experiment was part of a fourth-grade science fair project in Fort Collins, Colorado. Emily didn’t win the science fair. “It wasn’t a big deal in my classroom,” recalled Rosa, who graduated from the University of Colorado at Denver in 2009. “I showed it to a few of my teachers, but they really didn’t care, which kind of hurt my feelings.” Emily’s mother, Linda, recalled that “some of the teachers were getting therapeutic touch during the noon hour. They didn’t recommend it for the district science fair. It just wasn’t well received at the school.”
― Paul A. Offit, Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine