Daniel Ryan reports from the front line of the battle against the anti-fluoridationists. The members of Fluoride Action Network NZ and its spin-off groups are vociferous about the urgent need to ... (1303 words)

Hormone supplements derived from plants are widely promoted as more 'natural' than hormones from horses, but they carry the same risks - and some more of their own. The New Zealand Menopause ... (786 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)

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)

Sex abuse article missing content? I've just been reading my Summer 2012 edition of New Zealand Skeptic, but I think there is a piece missing from my version. On page 15-17 there is an article by ... (519 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)

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)

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)

Extravagant claims are often made for the health-giving effects of anti-oxidants in the foods we eat. But sorting out the truth from the hype is not at all easy. In the window of a health-food shop, ... (2199 words)

Many pharmaceuticals originate from nature, but their development is very different from that of so-called natural health products. This article was originally presented at the 2005 Skeptics ... (1839 words)

How to Poison your Spouse the Natural Way: A Kiwi Guide to Safe Eating, by Jay D Mann. JDM & Associates, $24.95. Reviewed by David Riddell. A Christchurch mother who fed her five-year-old son raw ... (329 words)

Selenium - Too Much of a Good Thing? New Zealand soils are deficient in selenium and this can cause serious health problems for animals. A 500kg animal needs about 1mg selenium daily. There is no ... (1259 words)

Traditional Chinese medical practitioners have given herbal remedies to Hong Kong Sars patients along with Western drugs, and public hospital officials said more patients might get similar treatment ... (308 words)

Insecurities about water quality have led to a boom in sales of bottled water. But the health benefits of the phenomenon are probably minimal. We were surprised to hear recently that sales of ... (976 words)

Another Alternative to Evidence Based Medicine Vehemence based medicine: The substitution of volume for evidence is an effective technique for brow-beating your more timorous colleagues and for ... (1058 words)

The Women's Weekly and Other Medical Journals Dr John Welch goes eyeball to eyeball with the iridologists, and takes a look at some famous faces Chiropractic Treatment of Infertility During idle ... (917 words)

Jim Ring's article on sodium chloride in Skeptic number 60 didn't mention a classic case. Red Seal markets a range of 12 remedies in tablet form called Dr Scheussler's Biochemic Tissue Salts. Among ... (118 words)

Scientific studies suggest "organic" foods are neither healthier nor safer than genetically modified products or those grown conventionally. InterNutrition, the Swiss Association for Research and ... (281 words)

More Brocken sightings I enjoyed Jim Ring's "the Spectre of Kahurangi" (Autumn 2001). In Kahurangi National Park there is a bridge called "Brocken Bridge", quite close to Ghost Creek. Could this be ... (932 words)

The marketing of sodium chloride should be taken with a pinch of salt Sodium chloride is a very simple chemical and cannot decay. Excess is harmful though it is an essential part of our diet. These ... (1138 words)

No Medical Ghetto In the last issue I warned of the dangers of a medical ghetto developing on the Auckland North Shore. Fifty new doctors set up practice in Auckland last year and even more overseas ... (1361 words)

One of the fictions of the "naive-greens" and other "irrationalists" is that "chemicals" are bad while natural products (non-chemicals?) are good. When asked if water is a chemical, and hence evil, ... (537 words)

Skin Lighteners The pop star Michael Jackson has denied that he uses chemicals to lighten his skin and claimed to be suffering from a disorder called "vitiligo," which is a spontaneous loss of skin ... (1528 words)

Magic potions made from natural ingredients are generally hailed as environmentally friendly. But is this necessarily true? Not if you're a rhinocerous! Rhino horn is highly valued for its alleged ... (95 words)