1 September 2025
On a recent American Psychological Association podcast the hosts interviewed Dr Ellen Peters, author of Innumeracy in the Wild: Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers. Her book discusses how numeracy affects people's health, financial security, and other life outcomes. She is also the author of some interesting papers in the same field, including this one that sets out a framework for interventions to improve the situation.
18 February 2025
The new Australian mini-series Apple Cider Vinegar was just released on Netflix. The series dramatises the true story of Australian Belle Gibson, who was a wellness influencer who falsely claimed to have cured her terminal brain cancer through diet and alternative medicine. She released an app, and later a recipe book, called The Whole Pantry, and pocketed $300K in donations meant for charity.
18 February 2025
Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV from here on in) is described in its press release, and in the opening scenes of each episode, as inspired by a true story, with certain characters and events being fictionalised or created. Standard stuff for this type of ripped-from-the-headlines, true crime docudrama. However, with the ongoing defamation lawsuit around another Netflix property, Baby Reindeer, we can forgive the producers and writers for wanting to preserve their creative license.
3 February 2025
There is wide acceptance that the evidence provided by randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that are conducted to high standards is at the top of a hierarchy of evidence. Some web sources are listed below that, because they base their advice on careful and transparent evaluations of the available evidence, can be trusted.
16 September 2024
It has been reported that former supermodel Elle Macpherson refused to follow the medical advice of 32 doctors to have chemotherapy following a breast cancer diagnosis, instead opting for holistic alternative therapies.
31 July 2023
As I've commented in previous issues of the newsletter, I listen to the excellent podcast Be Reasonable, hosted by Michael Marshall (Marsh, as he's colloquially known). In the latest episode (#083, released Wednesday 26th July), he interviewed Nyjon Eccles, a “functional medicine” doctor from the UK. He's a promoter of thermography, which is an Infra-red imaging technique used to scan women's breasts in an attempt to screen for differences in temperature from which, it is alleged, they can infer a possible tumour - that is, breast cancer.
17 July 2023
So, I'm a Diet Coke drinker. I don't drink hot drinks, and never have for my whole life. At least from my teenage years, when hot drinks were introduced in the form of tea, I always found them too hot and would burn my mouth. So, at least for the past few decades, I've consumed a reasonable* amount of Diet Coke.
29 May 2023
In the past, we've covered the Disinformation Dozen - a group of twelve people internationally who were/are responsible for promoting a lot of mis- and disinformation, who rose to particular prominence during the peak of the Covid pandemic.
26 October 2021
I'll preface this by saying that this is a topic I'm certainly not qualified to talk about.
26 July 2021
Mahin Khatami looks at first blush to be a respectable scientist - she has a long history as a scientist spanning decades, she used to work for the NIH (National Institutes for Health) in the US as a program director, and has not only been published in respectable peer reviewed journals, but has also been a journal editor.
19 May 2021
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 University of Sydney, points out that in many countries no evidence is needed that these products actually work, and of course many companies are happy to exploit that failing and sell a wide variety of unproven products to buyers who hope for a simple solution to the hard problem of controlling their weight.
17 May 2021
Last week was a busy one. On Monday I visited parliament for a church service called The Power of One, along with another couple of skeptics. The event was organised by a group called Jesus for NZ (who formed back in 2017 when Jesus was taken out of the parliamentary prayer), hosted by Alfred Ngaro and facilitated by Simon Bridges. There was a lot of talk about Jesus re-taking the nation until everyone in this country is a believer, and restoring NZ to its “former glory”. Personally I'm much happier with NZ being a rational, secular democracy than a theocracy, but it turns out that not everyone wants a fair society and equality for all.
16 November 2020
I've been binging on Netflix again and am looking forward to the next series of Ratched, a psychological thriller based on a character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a book by Ken Kesey. Be warned, the fashions may be fabulous, but the skull crunching gore is pretty grim.
1 August 2019
Britt Hermes is a former naturopath who left her profession, and now works actively with the science community to educate the public on the realities and failings of naturopathy. She earned her naturopathy 'degree' at Bastyr University in 2011 and went on to complete a one-year naturopathic “residency” at a private clinic in Seattle. After a few years of practising naturopathy in Arizona and around the US, she writes that she retired from her profession with a bang, and now lives in Germany, where she is currently a doctoral student at Kiel University.
16 December 2018
Cocksy, a celebrity builder on New Zealand TV, has cancer and is currently on an experimental new treatment.
2 September 2018
Yesterday I went to an "Allergy Free and Healthy Living Show" in Porirua. Sadly there were very few stands at the expo that were about allergies - there was Allergy NZ and Coeliac New Zealand. Most of the stands were selling fake cures for big bucks.
22 July 2018
We talked about a court case a while ago involving Johnson & Johnson, and a claim that asbestos in their talcum powder has been giving people cancer. A new decision in the US has seen a court award damages of nearly NZ$7 billion to 22 people who claim to have been affected by this issue.
24 June 2018
The NZ Herald has published a story about a woman whose terminal cancer was cured after she took cannabis oil. Of course, there's more to this story - isn't there always. In this case, the woman used both cannabis oil and chemotherapy to fight her cancer - no prizes for guessing which of those two will have helped her more. It also turns out that cancer was only "terminal" if the woman had not received any treatment. This is not what is normally considered to be a diagnosis of terminal cancer - terminal usually means that the cancer is not treatable with medicine, not that the cancer is not treatable without medicine.
8 April 2018
Tanya Filia, who has beaten the odds and outlived doctors' estimates of her life expectancy, is now pushing for the government to subsidise natural treatments.
11 February 2018
An Australian woman, Shona Leigh, has publicly spoken about how she supposedly cured herself of cervical cancer with cannabis oil. This story seems to be popular in NZ because of the new Labour government's recent efforts to relax our laws on medicinal cannabis use.
21 January 2018
Britt Hermes used to be a naturopath. She graduated and treated patients in the US, before realising that naturopathy was all bluster and no substance, and she wasn't helping anyone with their medical issues.
1 November 2017
Skeptic summary: Congregation sides with God who apparently prefers gay couples to live in sin rather than be married in his church.
15 October 2017
Doterra is a successful multinational company which sells innovative medical treatments - or at least that's what they'd have you believe. In reality, it appears to be a Multi Level Marketing scheme, based on Essential Oils, which preys on vulnerable people and makes dangerous untrue claims about their products.
3 September 2017
Last week an article was published on Stuff talking about how a young New Zealand woman who has had cancer (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) since she was 14 is going to spend $20,000 on an alternative treatment for her cancer - Ozone Therapy. The clinic says about this therapy:
27 August 2017
Stuff has a great article about a Naturopath who has been involved in treating the cancer of two patients who have died recently. The patients have both spoken out about how they think they made a mistake in trusting the naturopath.
6 August 2017
Lori Harris from the UK has sold all her belongings to pay for treatment for her mother, Lisa, who has stage 4 ovarian cancer. The Go Fund Me page for the fundraising effort for this treatment, which asks for £200,000, talks of needing money for immunotherapy in Germany, and links to a great article describing how this new therapy has the potential to allow us to treat some cancers in a novel way.
11 June 2017
Radio NZ published an article this week that seemed to accept, without evidence, claims that traditional Maori medicine can help with medical conditions including cancer.
7 May 2017
On April 11th I submitted a complaint to Medsafe about Te Kiri Gold, a bleach made by farmer Vernon Coxhead which he is selling as a cancer cure.
9 April 2017
We talked about Te Kiri Gold last year, when Sir Colin Meads was in the news endorsing it as a treatment for cancer. Although it wasn't on sale back then, and Vernon had been promising to run proper scientific trials of the product before putting it on the market, this seems to have now been forgotten.
19 March 2017
Back in 2009 Belle Gibson claimed she had cancer, and that she was treating it with "natural" remedies. She released a cookbook and iPhone app (called The Whole Pantry) helping others to use diet to treat medical conditions.
5 February 2017
Vicki Latele, who was jailed for mortgage fraud, has had a tough time. She has cancer, and has had her stomach removed. It appears that the standard treatments, such as chemotherapy, have not helped her, and she's been released from prison on compassionate grounds.
18 December 2016
I was contacted by a journalist about a local cancer "cure", Te Kiri Gold, and sent a response (with a little help from ex-chair of the NZ Skeptics, Vicki Hyde):
25 September 2016
The infamous Brio clinic in Thailand has sucked in unsuspecting kiwis, promising to treat them with unconventional therapies for cancer. One unfortunate victim, Holly Devine, died after raising $55,000 on Givealittle for treatment at the clinic, but before attending the clinic.
19 June 2016
A young woman died this week, while she was trying to raise $70k to fund and alternative cancer treatment at the Brio Clinic in Thailand. Amanda Ferreira also died last month from cancer. She had been to the Brio clinic once, and had been raising money to have further treatment there. Common treatments are heat therapy, ultrasound and pH transformation (probably alkaline).
13 March 2016
Christchurch council has voted 12-1 to look into ceasing use of glyphosate to kill weeds. The decision seems to have been made based on a recent International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report which labels glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic". Many other products come under a similar classification, such as coffee, alcohol and bacon. The important question isn't "is it carcinogenic?", but "how carcinogenic is it?". (Paracelsus)
7 February 2016
"The prime origin and cause of cancerous tissue is the over-acidification of the tissues then the blood due to lifestyle and dietary choices. A cancerous tissue begins with our choices of what we eat, what we drink, what we think and how we live. Cancer is a liquid and this liquid is a toxic acidic waste product of metabolism or energy consumption."
1 February 2016
A friend recently pointed me at a post on healthnutnews (which reads a bit like an offshoot of mercola.com – this, it turns out, is hardly surprising). It's been a while since I've read anything so full of total nonsense – well, a few days, anyway!
13 December 2015
Rod Parsley of the World Harvest church isn't relying on his healing abilities to treat his throat cancer but is seeking actual medical treatments.
1 August 2014
At the 2013 NZ Skeptic Conference Vicki Hyde presented a series of soundbites and talking points skeptics can use in discussions with others. Here are some of them, presented as a smorgasbord of ideas to be dipped into.
1 February 2014
Siouxsie Wiles takes a look at a new medical journal - available at all good supermarkets.
1 May 2013
Vitamin C is essential to human health, but our understanding of its role has been perverted by practitioners of 'alternative' medicine.
1 May 2012
A heartstring-tugging appeal in the_ NZ Herald _doesn't tell the full story.
1 May 2012
A drug awareness programme run by the Church of Scientology has received government funding to spread its views through schools and community groups (Sunday Star Times, 19 February(.
1 November 2010
This article is a response to_ 'Truth is the daughter of time, and not of authority': Aspects of the Cartwright Affair _by Martin Wallace, NZ Skeptic 96.
1 November 2009
Loretta Marron exposes an Australian Australian alternative cancer therapist.
1 August 2008
Don't scoff. A magazine as authoritative as Woman's Day reports a case where a woman treated her breast cancer by drinking her own urine. Following a mammogram and ultrasound examination the patient reports: "I was introduced to a surgeon who said I needed to have both my breasts removed right away." This is complete nonsense as no surgeon would ever perform a bilateral mastectomy without a tissue sample confirming the diagnosis. It is quite clear that she never had cancer at all, but a condition colloquially known as lumpy breasts or benign fibrocystic breast disease.
1 February 2008
Intersecting as it does sex, religion, blood, medicine and masculinity, circumcision is a subject that is hard to discuss rationally.
1 November 2007
Some risks in life are distributed throughout a population, others are all-or-nothing. There's a big difference. This article is based on a presentation to last year's Skeptics Conference.
1 May 2007
A visit to the birthplace of science prompts some thoughts on spatial and temporal patterns in alternative medicine.
1 February 2007
Members of the Royal Society and other eminent doctors have written to every hospital in the UK urging them not to suggest anything but evidence-based medicine to their patients (Guardian Weekly Vol 174 No 23). This was a timely reminder given that Prince Charles had just been urging the World Health Assembly to promote alternative medicine. The letter writers reminded people that alternative and complementary medicine needs to be evaluated on the same criteria as conventional medicine. This was precisely the same argument most of us took when making submissions to MACCAH.
1 May 2006
Mexican cancer clinics continue to do a roaring trade, despite their poor track record.
1 February 2005
If you don't get the answers you want from a Government inquiry, press for another inquiry. Vietnam war veterans have continued such a campaign and have produced a map to confirm that they were present in areas that were sprayed with the defoliant under the US Army "Operation Ranch Hand".
1 November 2004
The Break Free tour will be coming soon to a city near you. The week-long tour of lectures and book selling will start in Christchurch at the end of November and proceed to Wellington, Taupo, Hamilton and Auckland. The person who will head the tour is Phillip Day, who supposedly is "an award-winning author, health researcher and world-class speaker."
1 February 2003
The following correspondence between nursing lecturer Sue Gasquoine and Skeptics' chairentity Vicki Hyde is reproduced with the permission of the participants -ed.
1 August 2002
Mass screening programmes have generated considerable controversy in this country. But these programmes have inherent limitations, which need to be better understood
1 May 2002
Snake Oil And Other Preoccupations, by John Diamond. Vintage, 2001, $29.95
1 August 2001
Because Cowards get Cancer too, by John Diamond, Random House, 1998
1 August 1999
This title of a modest advertisement in the Sunday Star-Times last September caught my eye. Two statements in the ad surprised me: the first, that "usually only three treatments are needed", ie, it is implied that the therapy is a cancer cure, and the second, "...we are currently arranging a scientific Control Group with the Ministry of Health".
1 May 1995
The recent decision to award compensation to a lawyer who suffered depression because his bank loan was turned down is but one example of increasingly bizarre decisions by the ACC (Anything-goes Compensation Corporation). Money has also been paid out to victims for "memories" of childhood sexual abuse but in one recent case the alleged offender was aquitted and we are still waiting to see whether ACC will ask for their money back. (see Skeptic 34).
1 November 1994
The New Zealand Herald of 5 September carried the headline "Ozone gap to lift skin cancer 7 per cent".
1 August 1994
What is the link between chemicals and cancer?
1 May 1994
In Skeptic 30, John Britten outlined the tragic results which can occur when patients fall into the clutches of quacks. In this case, a man with rheumatoid arthritis was not only starved but ended up paying for expensive and useless medications. Most doctors can relate similar examples.
1 May 1991
The Lancet article on survival of patients with breast cancer attending the Bristol Cancer Help Centre (BCHC) has provoked widespread comment and badly shaken the confidence of those who believed that, at the very least, complementary therapies in cancer couldn't do any harm.
1 May 1991
Advocates of Britain's internationally known alternative cancer clinic, the Bristol Cancer Help Centre, have been surprised and shocked to find that their patients are dying faster than those under conventional care.
1 May 1991
Despite recent claims that "natural" foods are safer, there is evidence that "natural" pesticides can be present at much higher concentrations than residues from synthetic pesticides. These "natural" chemicals are often untested and of unknown toxicity, with little evidence of health benefits.
1 May 1991
By Graham Phillips. Pan, 1990. 168pp. $9.95 (paperback).
1 February 1991
The results of a study of women attending the Bristol Cancer Help Centre have concentrated a few minds. The findings published in The Lancet last week may be baffling, but they are undoubtedly disturbing: women with breast cancer who attended the centre in addition to having conventional treatment fared very much worse than a control group of women who received conventional treatment alone.
1 May 1990
The following article appeared in The New Zealand Herald of 6 September 1989. It was the most comprehensive coverage of the 1989 Conference to appear in the national press.
1 August 1988
The "Cancer Line" programme shown on TVNZ (November 11) was in some respects an undoubted success. Television in general demands that most topics be exploited in terms of their emotional dimensions. (If you're ever interviewed by the "Close-up" team, you can be assured that your contribution will make it to air only if you manage to weep: the "Close-up" producers think the zoom lens was invented to magnify teary eyes). Not wanting to take the depressing route, "Cancer Line" determined to make cancer a real laugh, with McPhail and Gadsby and other entertainers. This probably helped keep viewer interest high.
1 February 1988
Peter Dady, MD, MRCP, Director, Oncology Department, Wellington Hospital.