It is no small thing to realize that one’s trust in doctors has been shaken. In addition to putting one’s health at risk, at least in the long term, such a recognition has the potential to shatter one’s self-conception as an Enlightenment-oriented rationalist. Granola-munchers and witches may glance with suspicion at the contemporary medical establishment, but white-collar professionals do so at their acute psychological peril. While my own journey to skepticism and mistrust has been reluctant, it is, I think, representative of that taken by a great number of conservatives. We would like to believe in an ordered world of disinterested therapeutic recommendations, but the behavior of physicians as a class has rendered that conviction well-nigh impossible. Perhaps I ought to begin by stating that I and others of like mind obviously do continue to...