“You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.”

“Yes. I'm a doctor, an epidemiologist, and lots of my professional colleagues flip back and forth between industry and medical roles. I know them; they are not bad people. But it is possible for good people in bad systems to do things that inflict enormous harm.”

“If you put me in charge of the medical research budget, I would cancel all primary research, I would cancel all new trials, for just one year, and I would spend the money exclusively on making sure that we make the best possible use of the clinical evidence that we already have.”

“I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.”

“You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.”

“You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.”

“And if, by the end [of this book], you reckon you might still disagree with me, then I offer you this: you'll still be wrong, but you'll be wrong with a lot more panache and flair than you could possibly manage right now.”