From The Chairman.

About the time this newsletter arrives, the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal will have sponsored its first special-issue conference. The half-day meeting at the Christchurch Clinical School is entitled "Medicine: Orthodox, Fringe, and Quack, " and it brings together a diverse group of people on an important set of concerns. We hope that the next number of the "Skeptic" will have reports, both from us and from the press, to indicate that the meeting was a success.

Medicine is an area in which pseudoscience, antiscience, and the occult often meet. Fueled by wishful thinking, frequently on the part of both patient and practitioner, and the natural healing powers of the body itself, fringe medicine continues to flourish. Admittedly, many orthodox doctors don't much care. One remarked to me not long ago that he was far from upset by the fact that there were so many practitioners of alternative medicine about: it kept the hypochondriacs off his back, he explained. While I cannot agree with his cynicism, I can understand it. At the same time, and while trying always to remain open to any medical advances of substance which fringe or alternative medicine may offer, we must also realise that fraudulent or self-deceived practitioners of alternative medicine can bilk desperate people, and worse, can delay the application of effective treatment.

The issues, however, are enormously complex. While it is not the ambition of the New Zealand Skeptics to save the world, or New Zealand anyway, from worthless medical treatments, we certainly believe that there is something to be gained by greater critical public discussion of the benefits and harmful effects, real or imagined, of alternative or fringe medicine. We believe as well that the context for such discussion should not be simply a matter of airing the opinions of the alternative practitioners themselves and interviewing their (doubtless) many satisfied patients. We must always keep in mind the kinds of extreme fraudulence and victimisation that are possible in the medical field. Hence the appearance on our Christchurch panel of Greg Ansley of the Christchurch "Star", whose knowledge of the background of the Milan Brych affair will be most edifying. Jerry Orchard's contributions from the legal end will also prove interesting in this regard.

In the next issue of "The Skeptic" we hope to have a report of the activities of our Treasurer, Bernard Howard, in pursuit of the crystal healer Mr. Edmond Herid. Also, an energetic contribution from George Pirie taking to task Don Beavan's comments on quack medicine in our second issue, with special regard to chiropractic.

Please continue to provide cuttings which might be of interest for the Bent Spoon or Journalistic Excellence awards. I must say that since our announcement of the award in August, there has been a relative paucity of really outrageous reportage of items paranormal in New Zealand. Could it be that we're actually already having an effect? I honestly doubt it, but the idea is not out of the question.