Subscribe to the OSS Weekly Newsletter!

The Legend of the Wartime Placebo

11 Feb 2022

Facts rarely get in the way of a good story. There is a foundational myth in placebo research that has been repeated over and over again, sometimes with inexplicable flourishes, often with the...

Reassuring Data for Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine

10 Dec 2020

Pfizer and BioNTech’s RNA vaccine against COVID-19 has just been authorized by Health Canada. There will be many Internet whispers, half-truths and lies about how it works and how safe it is, so...

Can we use eggshells to treat osteoarthritis?

17 May 2018

Si tu veux lire cet article en français, cliquez ici!

Oprah for President?

12 Jan 2018

The U.S. is abuzz with chatter about Oprah for President. She makes a thoughtful, rousing, captivating speech at the Golden Globe Awards and people are ready to usher her into the Oval Office. But...

Laughter Is The Best Medicine

19 Oct 2017

“Laughter is the best medicine!” That’s an old adage, maybe even dating back to the biblical era. The book of Proverbs in the Old Testament proposes that “a  merry heart doeth good like a medicine:...

Get Ready for the Trottier Public Science Symposium

16 Oct 2017

When John Milton wrote in Paradise Lost that the mind can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, without realizing it, he was talking about the “placebo” and the “nocebo” effect. “Placebo”...

Does Glucosamine Really Work?

20 Mar 2017

Osteoarthritis is a painful condition associated with the deterioration of cartilage, the flexible connective tissue that cushions the joints between bones.  When cartilage wears away, bone...

“Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”

20 Mar 2017

Sometimes beliefs are converted into fact just by repetition. We constantly hear of people who want to avoid monosodium glutamate because of a fear of being struck by “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”...

Pages

Back to top