24 June 2024
In preparation for my article this week about my visit to a creationist talk, I logged into the NZ Skeptics' YouTube channel to upload some videos of the event I'd recorded. When I logged in, I was greeted with a warning about how we had violated one of YouTube's Guidelines:
4 March 2024
His grandmother Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, lived to the ripe old age of 101, his father Prince Philip was 99 when he died in 2021, and his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, reached 96 before her death in 2022, so King Charles, now 75, obviously has the benefit of good genes.
15 November 2021
About a year ago Daniel Ryan and I wrote to Givealittle, an organisation in NZ that runs an online platform which allows people to fundraise for needy causes. We expressed our concerns about misuse of the platform:
27 September 2021
This week I came across an article about a COVID anti-viral pill. There's some hope that an antiviral (similar to the well-known Tamiflu) could work that would be used to treat people with COVID. The action of the pill would work to reduce the viral load.
28 June 2021
Obviously India has been through the wringer recently with a huge increase in the number of COVID cases, and deaths, in the country. Thankfully the number of active cases is dropping, but at its peak around four and a half thousand people were dying per day, and there have been almost four hundred thousand reported deaths so far - although many experts fear the real total is likely to be much higher.
10 June 2018
The NHS recently decided to stop funding homeopathy. Until recently, taxpayers' money was used in the UK to fund homeopathic hospitals (in London, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and Tunbridge Wells) and prescriptions for homeopathy. In part of a suite of changes in an effort to avoid paying for ineffective treatments (including herbal remedies and fish oil), the NHS decided to stop paying money for these pseudoscientific medicines that don't work.
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 March 2018
A Reiki meeting has been deemed newsworthy by the Taranaki Daily News.
17 December 2017
18 classes of health product are being de-funded by the NHS in the UK, including 7 that are blacklisted:
1 August 2017
iSynchrony has put together a plausible-sounding bit of bafflegab to justify what it sells. The reality of neurology is against their claims.
4 October 2015
One in 13 men will develop prostate cancer before the age of 75.
1 February 2015
How much does the ACC spend on acupuncture? Mark Hanna investigates.
1 February 2008
Despite a series of studies showing it to be ineffective, ultrasound continues to be widely used by physiotherapists.
1 August 2006
Alternative medical practitioners often start out in the mainstream, but other currents may take them into new channels. This article is adapted from a presentation at the 2006 NZ Skeptics conference.
1 February 2006
PHARMAC is the Government drug-purchasing agency. Pharmac's 2005 Annual Review showed that about eight prescription items were issued per adult in that year. In the course of my work I write a lot of prescriptions but I certainly don't consume eight scripts per year.
1 November 2000
Vicki Hyde presents the year 2000 chair-entity's Report
1 February 1994
Some time ago I remember reading a letter in the Listener from a frustrated doctor who accused the public of being medically illiterate. Sometimes I feel this way myself but it is not a good practice to attack one's audience. Public education cannot be achieved within the context of traditional ten-minute medical consultations compared with quacks who may spend up to an hour providing mis-information. Drug companies are on record as cynically exploiting a gullible public eg. "...neither government agencies nor industry, including the supplement industry, should be protecting people from their own stupidity".
1 November 1993
Following his own empirical observations that bee "treatments" helped his arthritis, a Levin bee-keeper is claiming that he is being ignored by the medical profession. (Press 3/8/93) Not surprisingly, his trial of 11 patients failed to impress skeptical observers. Two patients dropped out and the remainder reported that the "sting" was effective. Having paid for the privilege of being stung, a sensation to be normally avoided, they are hardly likely to say that the treatment was worthless.
1 November 1992
The Bent Spoon Award this year created more controversy than usual when it was awarded to Consumer magazine. Why did we feel it necessary to bite our consumer watchdog?
1 February 1992
An Auckland 'doctor has been struck off the medical register for "disgraceful conduct", the Medical Council said yesterday.
1 February 1992
A medical degree is not a shield against quackery, but better understanding of the scientific process may help doctors and their patients to better evaluate treatments.
1 November 1988
In your November 1987 issue, Dennis Dutton (page 3) asks whether it matters that sick people, especially cancer sufferers, are not discouraged from using "alternative" or "complementary" treatments, The answer of course is the one that he himself has given: it does and it doesn't.
1 November 1988
The Spectator, 20 September 1986
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 May 1988
What price progress as many seek alternative remedies?