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.
16 November 2020
In Homeopathy news, Edzard Ernst, retired academic physician and specialist in complementary and alternative medicine (and skeptic hero) has created a “challenge for all homeopaths of the world”. In a similar way to the James Randi Educational Foundation's one million dollar paranormal challenge, Ernst has come up with a scientific way for homeopaths to “prove” their worth. What entrants need to do is identify the contents of 6 homeopathic solutions that they have chosen, but that have been transferred into containers marked 1 – 6 by a notary and sent back to them.
4 June 2017
A new alternative therapy has become popular recently - grinding up oak galls and putting the paste in your vagina. Oak galls are woody balls created when a wasp larva grows inside an oak tree's leaf bud. It is being claimed by sellers of this remedy that it can tighten and clean your vagina and improve your sex life.
4 October 2015
The Pharmacy Council is trying to change part of its Code of Ethics: Here is the old code:
1 August 2015
Ahh, winter. The season when I stare forlornly out the window, looking at the rain and wind, my pockets filled to the brim with tissues, wondering how it can be that there are so many brainy people in the world and we still haven't found a cure for the common cold.
1 February 2010
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 it's money for jam! No, that metaphor will just not work; perhaps money for water would be better? White-tail spider bites have been blamed for a huge range of injuries but the scientific evidence has discounted this attribution. (Those pesky skeptics again...!) Still, I thought it rather amusing to see a 'non remedy' for a 'non disease'.
1 August 2008
Martin Wallace particularly likes two of the five definitions of 'pitfall' in the OED: