Smearing Sally Satel
NEJM’s disingenuous swipe.

By NRO Staff
February 15, 2001 9:40 a.m.

he rave reviews are coming in for Sally Satel and her new book, P.C., M.D.: How Political Correctness is Corrupting Medicine. Satel's expose of a group she labels "the indoctrinologists" — medical professionals more concerned about trendy notions of social justice than the simple health of patients — has won praise from the Wall Street Journal (an "excellent study of medicine and society" full of "scientific precision and moral rigor"), the Baltimore Sun (an "extraordinarily courageous, punctiliously researched, powerful new book"), and elsewhere.

Then there's the New England Journal of Medicine, which actually comes in for some criticism on the pages of P.C., M.D.. Satel is "an unreliable guide," writes the NEJM reviewer. She "makes dubious accusations." She "omits pertinent information that would weaken her case." Finally, there's a devastating charge: "Satel invents data."

The author of the review is "Daniel M. Fox, M.D."

There's only one problem: Daniel M. Fox isn't an M.D. Talk about inventing data!

Fox is president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, a foundation involved in public-health policy. He holds a Ph.D. in history, and clearly knows something about the issues discussed in Satel's book. But he's not a physician. (Satel is an M.D.; she is a practicing psychiatrist and a lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine.)

"I sent them the right information," Fox told NRO. He claims an editor inserted the error. Fox also said that he proofread the galleys and didn't catch the mistake. "I looked at the galleys in great haste," he explained.

Nobody at the New England Journal of Medicine was available for comment.

"I've asked them to print a correction," says Fox.

What NEJM might additionally do is print Satel's brief response to the pseudo-doctor. Satel rebuts several of Fox's key assertions, most importantly the charge that she "invents data." That accusation, Satel writes, "is downright irresponsible. …Fox points to no manufacturing of statistics, numbers, or study findings."

The only "manufacturing" or "invention" of data, in fact, occurs not on the pages of Satel's book, but in the review written by her harshest critic.

Editor's note: For more about PC, M.D. , read read NRO's interview with Sally Satel.