"In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, trust in the healthcare system seems to be at an all-time low. Conspiracy theories are now mainstream, and distrust of government health agencies is common among private citizens. Yet many of those same individuals still profess trust in their doctors. What, then, is driving the general mistrust in medicine, and how can the public's faith be restored?
The Anatomy of Deception investigates the cause behind this seeming uptick in distrust by tracing the unexpected connection between medical mistrust and the move toward far right ideology in the United States. Drawing on personal qualitative research and interviews, health writer and expert Sara Gorman challenges traditional concepts of medical mistrust and argues that the loss of institutional trust in American health care signals a larger breakdown in democracy as a whole. In six short chapters, Gorman advances the idea of medical mistrust not as a byproduct of personal or historical abuses but as a direct result of bias, miscommunication, and lack of access that has slowly eroded trust in the public health system over time. She argues that we can build back trust in medicine through investments in health equity as a first step towards healing the schisms present in modern American society."
"In Denying to the Grave, Sara Gorman and Jack Gorman explore the psychology of health science denial. Using several examples as case studies, they propose six key principles that may lead people to reject 'accepted' health-related wisdom: the charismatic leader; fear of complexity; confirmation bias; fear of corporate and government conspiracies; causality and filling the ignorance gap; and the nature of risk prediction. This fully updated new edition of Denying to the Grave reviews the most recent research on health science denial, offering a new chapter on how the contemporary 'assault on science' waged by certain political administrations has eroded public trust in national health and science agencies. Also new to this edition is a chapter investigating the relationship between health crises and misinformation, and what happens to science denial amidst a global public health crisis. Finally, the book proposes a novel approach to counteracting misinformation and improving our ability to understand and accept scientific consensus.
In an era in which trust in science has become more important, and yet more elusive, Denying to the Grave sheds light on why we often choose to ignore scientific evidence, pointing the way toward a new understanding of how science should be conveyed to the public in order to save lives with existing knowledge and technology."
