A recent major report into herbs and supplements for weight loss has concluded that they don't work, and that not enough is known about their safety. Erica Bessell, the lead author from the ... (469 words)

Essential oils are concentrated extracted plant chemicals that have a strong smell of the plant they were extracted from - their "essence". These oils are often heated in a diffuser, or evaporated ... (497 words)

A new group advocating a strong basis in rigorous science for the provision of safe and effective healthcare has been established in New Zealand. Mark Hanna explains. There is a lot of medical ... (930 words)

Pills & Potions at the Cotter Medical History Trust, by Claire le Couteur. Otago University Press, 2014. RRP $25. Reviewed by Vicki Hyde. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or wince as I paged ... (427 words)

Psychics get credit for body discovery Two psychic mediums have been credited with helping to find the body of a Stratford man who drowned in the Patea River last September (Taranaki Daily News, 1 ... (1259 words)

Martin Bridgstock worries about a new trend which might, in the long run, threaten both science and skepticism. What exactly is a pseudoscience? The Oxford English Dictionary defines it like this: A ... (1811 words)

"Alkaline and hydrogen-rich" water is being touted as the latest cure-all. There is a sort of health shop in the Johnsonville Mall on the outside of which is this handsome sign: Which is intriguing. ... (819 words)

Alison Campbell learns some interesting facts about water chemistry Following recent events in Hamilton I've found myself involved in several debates on the merits of fluoridated water lately. This ... (712 words)

Siouxsie Wiles takes a look at a new medical journal - available at all good supermarkets. I'm a scientist. I know that the word journal has several meanings, but when I use it I'm referring to a ... (657 words)

Magnetic claims challenged Online claims that magnetic wrist and ankle bands have therapeutic benefits have had to be removed following a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (NZ Herald, ... (1234 words)

'Climategate' emails show case not closed Keith Muir (NZ Skeptic 109) ends "I rest my case." But he never makes a case; he only quotes opinion. This is unacceptable in Law or Science. The alarmists ... (515 words)

Iridologist's neglect led to 'avoidable' death A Te Horo iridologist breached the code of human rights and failed, as a healthcare provider, to give a Feilding grandmother proper care, the Human ... (1303 words)

Keith Garratt finds the NZ Homeopathic Society is capable of change. On 2 October 2013, I received this email: Dear Keith, We acknowledge receipt of your letter 16th September 2013. The changes you ... (1114 words)

A 'Wellness Festival' provides a couple of hours' entertainment, if not much more The stallholders at Porirua's inaugural Wellfest in August were a mixed bunch. Among the 50 or so displaying their ... (973 words)

Alison Campbell reviews Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam, by Pope Brock. Three Rivers Press, New York. Goat glands, greed, and the ... (757 words)

Matthew Willey recalls the days before the internet, and an old friend My friend Maggie had a wasting, incurable illness. If that sounds awfully sad, well, it was. But we had a great friendship and ... (633 words)

Alison Campbell thinks there are better ways to lose weight than one recently touted option. As I've said previously, I find Facebook good for keeping up with friends and family, and profoundly ... (646 words)

Vitamin C is essential to human health, but our understanding of its role has been perverted by practitioners of 'alternative' medicine. The 18th-century discovery that oral citrus juice can protect ... (3244 words)

Making a submission to a parliamentary committee proved to be a worthwhile exercise. When the Natural Health Products Bill was introduced to Parliament in September 2011 with cross-party support it ... (2317 words)

_This could be the shining hour Based on all those mad beliefs In the money oil and angel powder In the new age magazine_ Grant Lee Buffalo, The Shining Hour (1993) Law and medicine have much in ... (2752 words)

A fiasco over a 'Natural Therapy Clinic' at Wanganui Hospital was finally resolved satisfactorily - but for the wrong reasons. The attempted introduction of 'natural therapy' to Wanganui Hospital has ... (2686 words)

A new alternative treatment for Alzheimer's doing the rounds seems to be based on a misunderstanding of the underlying science. The title of this piece is a question posed by the 'health ... (634 words)

How to raise a psychic child All children are psychic, according to one of the stranger items to appear in the NZ Herald (30 May) for a while. Sue Bishop is described by writer (I hesitate to say ... (1334 words)

Gold takes a long walk. Some time back I noticed that I was getting the first signs of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). I'm a web developer and spend way too much time in front of a keyboard and ... (293 words)

Alison Campbell learns how to fine-tune the universe with a didgeridoo. Recently a commenter on Orac's Respectful Insolence blog ( scienceblogs.com/insolence) mentioned the therapeutic use of ... (575 words)

'Suckers' feed on alternative health patients - literally The NZ Herald (10-14 January) must have been having trouble filling its pages during the silly season, looking at its recent series on ... (1235 words)

Proponents of alternative therapies often throw around charges of vested interest when challenged. But often their own interests don't bear scrutiny. As this is the first of what I hope will be a ... (1042 words)

A 'natural' way to manage teething pain has no plausible mechanism. Parents, especially new parents like myself, are a vulnerable group. We tend to be full of anxiety that we are doing the 'right ... (1235 words)

Homeopathic 'vaccines' on sale in New Zealand The website www.endohealth.co.nz is selling such items as homeopathic immunisation and travel kits. On offer are such remedies as Natrium Muriaticum 200C ... (632 words)

A learning difficulties programme that claims to re-train the cerebellum makes some impressive claims which don't stand close scrutiny. DORE is an organisation that claims to treat learning ... (2210 words)

Chiropractic has had a colourful history since its invention in the 19th Century. Chiropractic has had an extraordinary history, but the vehement response of its practitioners to criticisms of its ... (2981 words)

Alison Campbell finds some claims about raw foods hard to swallow. I was reading a couple of articles about 'raw foods' today. This is 'raw foods' as in 'foods that you don't heat above 40°C in ... (572 words)

Fake bomb detector leads to deaths One of the main reasons for the success Al Qaeda has had in getting bombs past checkpoints in Iraq is that the main device used to detect explosives is a uselss ... (1276 words)

As part of the Memorandum of Understanding between the National and Green parties, the Ministry of Health has been developing proposals for a natural health products scheme to regulate such products ... (396 words)

NZ Skeptics link up with a British campaign against homeopathy. On January 30 there was a concerted global mass overdose - but no-one died because the 'medication' was homeopathic. The event grew ... (1451 words)

At last year's NZ Skeptics conference Bob Brockie reflected on his career as a newspaper columnist and explained why he has no future with the Mormon Church. After spending most of my life as a ... (2073 words)

Noel Townsley continues our series on the psychic roadshows touring New Zealand. From a website to which I subscribe came an email notice of two upcoming events with "well-known psychic" Jeanette ... (3087 words)

A non-remedy for a non-disease I had to wait for my prescription at the pharmacy and while browsing the shelves noticed a new homeopathic remedy for white-tail spider bites. At $18.40 a small bottle ... (177 words)

This excerpt from an NZ Skeptic article of 20 years ago reviewed an evening with self-styled New Zealand 'magnetic healer' Colin Lambert. Presumably the pseudonym 'Alpha Beta' was used to minimise ... (475 words)

Flaky diagnostic tool fans toxin scare fire Hard on the heels of the Bent Spoon awarded to the Poisoning Paradise 'documentary', the NZ Herald has produced an appalling piece on alleged pesticide ... (1228 words)

A therapy marketed as a guaranteed way to stop smoking appears to lack a sound theoretical basis and to have little experimental support. As health researchers in the field of tobacco smoking ... (2402 words)

White-tail spiders: a web of misconceptions Linley Boniface is to be congratulated for her humorous take on the prevailing hysteria around alleged "white-tail spider bites" (Dominion Post 9 March). ... (1126 words)

Bogus chiropractor? I thought they were all bogus! A Motueka man, Michael Dawson, was fined $4000 for describing himself as a chiropractor. This upset Nelson chiropractor Dr John Dawson who was ... (1437 words)

Poison for Profit There is something rotten in the state of China, a country where greedy people are quite happy to poison their own citizens in the name of profit. Milk powder is assayed for protein ... (1154 words)

Why is Canterbury University fostering an alternative therapy at its Health Centre? Should Canterbury University be funding pseudo-science? It was implied that this was occurring in a recent ... (1169 words)

A visit to the birthplace of science prompts some thoughts on spatial and temporal patterns in alternative medicine. There is no special reason for skeptics in New Zealand to follow news from ... (817 words)

Female 'sorcerers' tortured and murdered Four Papua New Guinea women, believed by fellow villagers to have used sorcery to cause a fatal road crash, were tortured with hot metal rods to confess, then ... (1225 words)

Dark Eddies in the Mainstream So-called conventional medicine isn't immune to nonsense. I do not confine myself to examining the conduct of alternative medicine. The conventional medical literature ... (1071 words)