The Weinstein Citadel

I like Eric Weinstein but I have trouble engaging in some of his ideas. During an episode with Ross Douthat on Eric's podcast, he frequently made references to those, like himself, who are kept outside the "Citadel."

He often talks about institutional gatekeepers that he finds elitist and working to undermine rogues such as himself. And while some of that might be true, it bothers me that he never attempts to engage in some good faith reasoning about why those institutions exits.

They are another classic Type I/Type II error scenario. I believe that there are more bad ideas than good ideas. A tightly guarded Citadel keeps out many bad ideas at the cost of a few good ones. I'd like to hear Eric, instead of his usual institution-bashing, offer a solution to opening up the Citadel while still keeping out bad ideas.

Ticks, Diets, and Double-Blind Studies

My wife had a chronic condition for many years. She had numerous tests, including for Lyme, that came back negative. It seemed that no one could help us as her condition continued to deteriorate.

We made the decision to explore options outside the Citadel, the circle of specialists and doctors we had been referred to within our healthcare insurance network.

First, we saw a doctor in Pittsburgh that my mother-in-law found through researching ILADS recommended specialists. He ran some tests, affirmed my mother-in-law's suspicion that my wife had Lyme Disease, and put her on long-term antibiotics. He was very positive, telling my wife she will start feeling better in no time. (She didn't.)

When we moved to Massachusetts, we saw a different doctor, an infectious disease specialist. She made no promises and told us that my wife was going to have to make some difficult changes if she was going to have a chance of improving her condition, which she called "probably something closer to Lyme."

The biggest difference between the two doctors is that the latter put my wife on a low glycemic diet. She also took my wife off some unnecessary medication that Pittsburgh doctor had prescribed and changed the antibiotics my wife was taking. She started to feel better in a few weeks, although it took a few years before she began feeling like herself again.

Good Rogue/Bad Rogue

Now, both doctors are outside the medical community's Citadel, which does not approve of long term antibiotics for Lyme Disease and doesn't even recognize the condition Chronic Lyme Disease. To my knowledge, long-term antibiotic treatment has not been shown to work better than a placebo. Sure, some people get better but who's to say that would not have improved on their own. Also, long-term antibiotics can be very damaging to a patient's health.

So both doctors' approach puts them outside the Citadel. The Massachusetts doctor, however, also promotes a diet change. Generally, diets are not approved by the Citadel. But not because they are harmful, like long-term antibiotics. Simply because they cannot pass a double-blind study. There is no way to give someone a placebo diet; people know what they are eating.

(Here is a great read about a mother who's daughter becomes diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Through her own research, she discovers a very effective diet treatment from a rogue doctor. The Citadel advises her against it: mainly because it cannot pass a double-blind random controlled trial even though it is more successful than Citadel-approved treatment and has no side effects.)

Help, I need a referral, not just any referral

If my wife had continued to see the Pittsburgh doctor, I worry about how poor her health would be right now. Not only might she still be in pain, the damage to her immune system from the medication might have been irreparable.

I want to live in a world in which people have access to the helpful doctors outside the Citadel but are warned about the dangerous ones. The Citadel made if difficult for me to find the good rogue doctor, but I had no way of distinguishing her from the bad rogue doctor.

I wonder if Eric Weinstein thinks about this when he complains about how mean the Harvard professors were to him.