For many readers this newsletter will be their main method of contact with other skeptics. It is essential then that it be a lively and thought provoking assessment of the scene in New Zealand. The stimulating and amusing material can only come from members. It is true that there is plenty of good stuff in the Skeptical Inquirer and the Australian Skeptic but I do not want to use that as I suspect that most N.Z. sceptics will receive one of those publications already. Hence this is a strong plea for articles. I have already sent some begging letters to particular members and I shall send more. We also need members to send me cuttings from the the press with examples of fatuity and danger (I seem to see very little of this in our New Plymouth papers, perhaps we are more sensible than elsewhere in N.Z.). Please send me material to make this a trenchant, relaxed and informative publication.

Health quackery flourishes in New Zealand because we are less critical of fraud, less critical of what, in the United States' would be labelled as criminal deception.

The Health Department was planning a study of pesticides and other Chemicals which New Zealanders might be consuming In food and water, said the acting departmental press officer, Mr John Boyd, yesterday.

Dear fellow skeptics, please note the following: N.Z.C.S.I.C.O.P. incorporated's first annual convention, University of Otago, 9-10 August, 1986

A Christchurch doctor, Dr Robert Blackmore, who uses the same diagnostic method for alleged chemical poisoning as Dr Tizard, would like the method to be scientifically validated.

I was a teacher of Biology and Science at a State High School in North Queensland throughout 1983 and 1984. In this article I wish to briefly present the successful creationist campaign there as 1 personally saw it, and to point out trends and other factors which were conducive to this success, with comparative references to the New Zealand education system.

Claims by an Auckland Physician, Dr Matthew Tizard, of having diagnosed cases of herbicide Poisoning have been rejected by a task force set up by the Director-General of Health.

Police are dumbfounded at an extraordinary claim by internationally famed medium Doris Stokes that she pointed them to the grave of a New Zealand murder victim.

12 - 2 p.m., Press Conference,