Petr Skrabanek (Czech: Petr Škrabánek; 27 October 1940 – 21 June 1994) was a Czech-Irish physician, professor of medicine and author of several books and many articles. Skrabanek was described by Ben Goldacre as "a lifelong champion of clear thinking, scepticism, and critical appraisal", and expressed vocal criticism of what he dubbed "cacademics", "quackupuncturists" and "nonsensus-consensus". Skrabanek was a polymath, loving jazz, history, literature and playing the piano. He spoke several languages thanks to which he was able to deeply study Joyce's last work - the avant-garde novel Finnegans Wake.
Career Skrabanek studied chemistry, joining the faculty of Natural Sciences at Charles University in Prague in 1957. Following his studies he was a researcher at the Institute for Toxicology and Forensic Medicine in Prague, graduating in 1962. He also frequently contributed short articles to the Czechoslovak science journal Vesmír. Beginning in 1963, Skrabanek studied medicine at the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno, and wrote abstracts from journals published in Slavonic languages for Chemical Abstracts. Later he worked as an expert in forensic toxicology in Prague. In 1967 Skrabanek was selected to spend a month in Galway Regional Hospital. When the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia in July 1968, he and his wife Věra Čapková were on holiday in Ireland and they remained there as emigrants. Soon after, he was admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland to finish his medical studies, qualifying LAH in 1970. For the next four years he worked for the Medical Research Council laboratory and the department of internal medicine of Jervis Street Hospital. He left this post in 1975 to join the Endocrine oncology research team at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital as a senior research fellow, and as a leading specialist, he became involved in research into the neurotransmitter substance P. At the same time he completed his doctoral thesis "Inappropriate Production of Hormonal Peptides in Neoplasia". Starting in the late 1970s, Skrabanek dealt with wider medical questions of medicine. He wrote more than 300 articles, at first purely professional, but later he applied his broad knowledge towards commenting on current and general issues of medicine and science. He soon became a member of the Lancet Editorial Board and a valued, independent contributor. A number of his articles have been directed against mistakes and frauds in medicine and, above all, against charlatanism. In 1984, through Lancet, Skrabanek met his future colleague and collaborator James McCormick, who offered him a position at the Trinity College Dublin Department of Community Health with a grant from the Wellcome Foundation. Skrabanek later became a professor there, specializing in neuroendocrinology. From this position he "immediately began to establish his position as an original, cogent, and fearless critic, particularly in relation to preventive medicine."While at Trinity, Skrabanek said "One of my duties is to protect people against the harm that over-enthusiastic doctors and misguided politicians can inflict upon them." Skrabanek maintained his reputation as a stringent and scathing critic of dogmas, sham, and wishful thinking pertaining to the areas of preventive medicine and alternative medicine. In 1991, Skrabanek became a Fellow of Trinity College and the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. in 2018, he became the seventh recipient of the Stearne medal, awarded by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland to "persons of distinction who have made a contribution to medicine in Ireland".
Major works
Follies and Fallacies in Medicine The collection which we have compiled may give the false impression that doctors are at best charlatans and at worst rogues, and that medicine is itself a major threat to health. Medicine only becomes a threat to health if it remains untempered by the use of rational inquiry and criticism. Such criticism is an important and relatively neglected task. Skrabanek's first book, which was co-authored by J. MacCormick, entitled "Follies and Fallacies in Medicine", was published in 1989. It had a broad response and was promptly translated into Danish, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Czech, and is on the reading list of medical schools around the world, to encourage an appropriate skepticism about medical dogma. It was a critique against mistakes, delusions, myths and frauds in medicine and healing. The first chapter emphasizes the role of placebo as a little emphasized, but crucial element in medicine and healing. The importance of placebo is illustrated by numerous examples. In the second chapter, there are almost thirty different delusions and temptations, to which a doctor can succumb as a scientist and practitioner. A provocative chapter is one on prevention, the importance of which Skrabanek partly questions as he highlights possible risks. Another chapter is about alternative medicine, the validity of which he clearly rejects without tolerance or attempted reconciliation:
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