Newsfront

Homeopathic 'hormone' drops under review

A homeopathic preparation of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is gaining popularity in New Zealand (NZ Herald, 2 March), despite costing upwards of $3000 per litre.

The preparation is taken as drops along with a diet that restricts intake to 500 calories per day. Given that most people require about 2-2500 calories per day there's little doubt this would achieve weight loss if adhered to, though what it may do to the immune system and general metabolism over a prolonged period is anybody's guess.

The hCG, being homeopathic, probably won't do any direct harm, even though the hormone in clinical concentrations is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration only as a prescription injection drug to treat infertility and some other conditions. It will hurt the bank account though, with costs listed on the HCG New Zealand website starting at $55 for 15 ml, up to $180 for a 60 ml bottle - quite a lot considering it's basically water.

The Commerce Commission has now received a complaint about one of the products, alleging misleading claims, and the Ministry of Health is also checking that the drops are within the law governing the sales of medicines.

Medsafe compliance manager Derek Fitzgerald said some homeopathic remedies contained so little of the active ingredient that they were not regarded as being any risk, but making a product look as if it contained a prescription-only medicine, or making therapeutic claims about a product, could still put it outside the law.

The diet starts with a two-day 'loading' phase eating a very high-fat diet three times daily, followed by 19 or 40 days on 500 calories, taking the drops all the while. This is followed by a 'maintenance' phase where calorie intake is slowly increased to stabilise the new weight, without the drops.

Although many companies claim hCG can curb appetite and speed up metabolism, numerous studies have found no scientific evidence that the hormone causes weight loss.

Wake-up call for 'hippies'

The father of a seven-year-old tetanus victim say he and his wife behaved like hippies when it came to their son's health (Sunday Star-Times, 20 January).

Ian Williams told of watching his son Alijah convulsing in a hospital bed. "Blood is dripping from his mouth and he is saying 'save me daddy'," said Williams. "I was holding the hand of my kid who had an arched back, the muscles could break his bones at any second, and his heart could stop."

Williams, who has a science degree and has successfully invented and developed a home-brew machine, said he and his wife Linda believed they'd done their research in deciding not to vaccinate Alijah, but now admits they were out of their depth.

"When it came to my kid's health, I let the hippie win. I should have let the science win."

He says they fell for the myths and conspiracies that pepper the internet, and underestimated the diseases while over'estimating the risks of vaccine reactions.

Alijah was discharged in a wheelchair on 8 January after 26 days in hospital. He faces a 12-month recovery including having to learn to eat and walk again.

Scientologists hope to clear up misconceptions

The Church of Scientology in New Zealand has released a media guide it says it hopes will clear up misconceptions about the group (NZ Herald, 7 February).

The Workings of Scientology: A guide for media, was released following a million'dollar Super Bowl commercial the same week which bore the tagline: "The one thing that's true is what's true for you." But Mike Ferris, the spokesman for Scientology in Auckland, said there was no real connection between the two.

The church was an easy target, he added. "People reject new ideas. They really do. Does it ever bother me? Well, I guess it did once. But not really any more."

Asked about Xenu ' the galactic overlord described by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard ' Ferris said such beliefs were no different from the esoterica of angels and demons in Christianity, or Hindu mythology, with "strange beings of human crossed with animals".

The media guide said Scientology's key beliefs include that a person is an immortal being, whose experience extends "well beyond" a single lifetime, and that people's "capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realised".

Fewer than 400 people in New Zealand declared their religion as Scientology in the most recent (2006) census.

Australian psychics in crowded market

No wonder so many Australian mediums do the circuit this side of the Tasman - it sounds like there's plenty of competition in the field over there.

The Sydney Morning Herald (16 February) has taken a rather tongue'in'cheek look at the crowded medium market in and around Sydney, where Australian Psychics Association president Simon Turnbull plies his trade, along with many others. The association has close to 1600 members, he says, of whom a third speak to dead people.

As well as interviewing several practising mediums the paper canvases a range of sceptical views, from the likes of the University of London's Chris French, Krissy Wilson from Charles Sturt University, James Randi, and Australian Skeptics president Richard Saunders, who says mediums are not so much getting answers as asking questions, fishing for information and using flattery.

"If a person cannot think of somebody who had a little black dog or played the piano or had a red car, it doesn't matter. A psychic might say, 'Well, you do, somebody you know has. Now go home and ask your family.' Now the audience thinks, 'Wow, this psychic knows something about this person they don't even know themselves.' If that person goes home and still can't find any information, who cares? The show's over."

Herald slams mediums

Shelley Bridgeman of the NZ Herald (12 March) has taken some well'directed swipes at these psychic parasites, after reading a piece by Deb Webber in Woman's Day.

A reader had supplied a photo of her slender, grey'haired late husband, and asked whether her prayers for his safety and happiness had been answered. Webber replied: "There is a gentleman, slender, with grey hair … I'm seeing a wedding ring - it's your husband."

"It certainly didn't take a clairvoyant, psychic or medium to regurgitate this blindingly obvious fact," Bridgeman comments.

Bridgeman notes that like many such practitioners, Webber's response contained generic statements that could apply to most people, as well as educated guesses.

"In seeing 'a small lounge room and three bedrooms', Webber described the average Kiwi house."

Duping a vulnerable and bereaved person into thinking they've received messages from beyond the grave is callous and opportunistic, she says. As for Sensing Murder, on which Webber appears regularly, she endorses the view of skeptical site immortality.co.nz that the show is "cynically exploiting the families of the victims for ratings and profits".

Gish and Swann gone

A couple of giants from the world of pseudoscience have departed this life in the last couple of months.

Duane Gish, a long'time stalwart of the creationist movement, died on 5 March, aged 92 (National Center for Science Education, 6 March). One of the few creationists with a bona fide PhD (in chemistry), he wrote numerous books, of which the most famous was Evolution? The Fossils Say No! He gained notoriety for his debates with scientists, and his rapid'fire delivery of unsuppported claims, known as the 'Gish gallop'.

And Ingo Swann, psychic detective, ufologist, author, and participant in numerous paranormal experiments, died on 31 January aged 79 (Doubtful News, 1 February). He was best known for his collaborations with Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff in the US Government's unsuccessful Stargate Project on remote viewing.