A while ago, I was a paid-up member but opted out after a hell-of-a-roasting for defending the cramp-killing properties of Cramp Stop. I was told it was unscientific nonsense due to its "6c" homeopathic dilution (Arnica, Magnesium, Cuprum, Nux Vomica).
We recently received a request from a student to answer some questions about UFOs and other unexplained phenomena. After reading the email, it looked likely that this project will approach these topics from a somewhat credulous angle:
In the last few months NASA has announced the detection of a third extrasolar object, named ATLAS, on its way through the solar system - following Oumuamua (in 2017) and Borisov (in 2019). We've only been detecting these objects that aren't gravitationally bound to our sun - visitors that fly through our solar system and then continue on their way, never to return - for the past decade or so, and there's good reason for this. Several projects have been created recently that attempt to detect objects that have the potential to collide with earth, such as Pan-STARRS (the Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System) and ATLAS (the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System). These two projects found Oumuamua and Comet Atlas respectively, whereas the other extrasolar object, Comet Borisov, was discovered by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov (an awesome guy who spotted it using one of the many telescopes he has designed and built himself and operates at his personal observatory).
We're living in strange times, with so much upheaval in the US that it's already having global repercussions.
Donald Trump is no stranger to outlandish conspiracies or strange social media posts. But, by any measure, his post on Saturday night a couple of weeks ago was particularly bizarre. The president posted (and later removed) a clip on Truth Social of a fake Fox News segment with Lara Trump detailing the White House's announcement of the world's first Medbed hospital and a national MedBed card system (two things that very much do not exist). Fox News told The Verge that the Medbed segment, “_never aired on Fox News Channel or any other Fox News Media platforms._”
The Telepathy Tapes is a 10+ episode podcast series that was released in September 2024. Created and hosted by Ky Dickens, Season 1 is described as daring to… “explore the profound abilities of non-speakers with autism - individuals who have long been misunderstood and underestimated”. But Dickens doesn't content herself with the common trope of autistic savantism and instead goes full paranormal. Specifically, as the podcast name indicates, Dickens presents incidents of telepathy, but also astral projection (see episode 3), mediumship (see episode 2), talking to god (see episode 7), and pronosticating (see episode 5 and 7).
After 12 years of running a fortnightly Skeptical Activism group in Wellington, it's finally come to an end. We will look into the feasibility of running an online activism meeting at some point, but for now the in-person event, with a free beer for your first complaint, is no more. To give everyone a flavour of the kind of work we did at our activism meetings, we thought we could let you know what we got up to on our final night.
Nearly a decade ago, I was in a local pharmacy and noticed that they had a flyer for a Weleda product that was making some pretty strong claims.
In part one of this series I recapped the core beliefs of sovereign citizens, and where those beliefs come from, as well as some of the mischief being caused for Councils and the Police. In part two I looked at their interactions with Justices of the Peace. In this final part I explore what's been happening in our Courts. The focus is mainly on NZ Courts, but I will also delve briefly into a couple of Canadian cases, one of which is drawn upon extensively in most NZ Court rulings around sovereign citizen behaviour.
The Christmas before last, I received a work email informing me of the holiday dates during which our office would be closed, and that for these dates I would need to book annual leave. I guess in an attempt to soften the blow of people needing to use over half of their annual leave on days outside of their choosing, management decided to let us know of the benefits of taking leave:
Unfortunately Mailchimp failed me last night, and refused to let me login to their website to send out the newsletter. But we're back up and running now, bringing you skeptical news from New Zealand and beyond.
I saw a lot of anti-Māori disinformation on social media in the last few months before the 2023 New Zealand general elections. For clarity, disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people with a goal in mind, whereas misinformation is incorrect or misleading information that is spread without specific malicious intent. Such rhetoric can create a voting block large enough for politicians to pander to, and it would be tempting for MPs to then pledge to implement policies to attract these voters. It can also swing voters to vote for parties who are sympathetic to their newly formed views. The anti-Māori disinformation that was being spread on social media at the time largely took on two forms.
The Go Green Expo is an annual weekend-long event that has been running for just over a decade. Starting in Wellington, the organisers have since spread to other cities in New Zealand, currently running events in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and the Hawke's Bay. Although the event is slated to be a “sustainable lifestyle” expo, there's very little that's sustainable or eco-friendly being promoted at the event.
Is Going Green like Breaking Bad, where you take a wrong turn in your life and start making dubious life choices? Because the owners of the Go Green Expo, held at different locations around the country each year, seem to have made a really bad life choice when they decided to let alt-med nonsense into their Expo right from its inception.
As we've just had two weeks of school holidays, I've just spent a week in Australia. Sadly during that time a new set of Mormon missionaries were unable to visit me at home to try to convert me. But, don't despair, they've already messaged me again and we've arranged to meet on Saturday. At this point I'm not sure if they seriously think they have a chance to win me over, or if I'm just a sport for them - but I enjoy the conversations, so I'll continue to let them visit me at home and take a couple of hours of my time.
Last week I went to Australia for a holiday. Although tourist traps are not my idea of a good holiday destination, I have a family, and when you're a parent, holidays tend to be more about the kids than your own preferences. And so off we went to the Gold Coast - a place that was both warm and had lots of theme parks.
Last week we received a request from the editor of the Katikati Advertiser asking for our response to a story that was being written about a psychic:
You may or may not have heard the term “crank magnetism”. I had heard of the term, but I'd completely misunderstood its meaning. Yes, this item is going to be a bit of a laugh at myself as much as anything!
In honour of our upcoming conference, rather than giving a day-by-day recount of skeptical history, I pulled some Dunedin-specific events to share. While I wouldn't say Dunedin is the strangest place in New Zealand (that crown is currently held by Canterbury), its denizens are certainly trying their damnedest to convince us all about how haunted they are.
This week I'm taking a look at the recent controversy surrounding Ārepa - the brain drink product that's been pulled up by the Ministry of Primary Industries for making unsubstantiated claims about the health benefits of its product.
In the past few months I've been watching a website that makes some quite extraordinary claims, at least in my opinion. It's immersioncosmetics.co.nz What has really piqued my interest is a new product recently advertised. It's Shungite, a relatively rare black stone with fairly high carbon content, usually 30-95% but often with many impurities and fullerenes, a spherical carbon molecule usually known as buckyballs. It was originally discovered in Shunga, in the Karelia region of Russia, but is more widespread than that,
Over the last week or so I've been approached online by two scammers and, I guess because of the amount of free time I have now that I'm not attending Eastern Lightning fellowship meetings, I decided to play ball with both of them and see where the scam leads. Neither has reached the point yet where I've been asked to give them my money, but in both cases it didn't take long to see where the con would eventually come. Once we get to that point, which is likely to be in the next day or two for both, I will have a couple of fun articles to write - I've already been meticulously copy/pasting all of my chat sessions with the scammers in documents, so that I have a record of everything that goes on. As a taster, here's a fun preview of one of the incidental conversations I had with a “Customer Care” representative for a company I'm now apparently working for:
There's a trend among some of the longer-running US TV shows of, after a few seasons, releasing a musical special. I guess once a show's creators know they're on safe ground, and that their show isn't going to be cancelled in the near future, they can take the risk of making a themed episode - and music seems to be a common theme. Shows that have had their cast break out into song for an episode include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, Psych and Scrubs. And, although I'm not a fan of musicals, this issue of our newsletter will be focusing on music and audio.
I received a text from radio host Graeme Hill the other day, alerting me to a Newshub Nation piece on UAPs (Unidentified Aerial/Anomalous Phenomena) - the new, more “serious” name for UFOs. In the 10 minute video report, Rebecca Wright and Simon Shepherd interviewed Australian investigative reporter Ross Coulthart about his investigation into David Grusch. If Ross is to be believed, David Grusch is the most important whistleblower ever in the history of UFO/UAP revelations.
The last time I wrote my newsletter, I wrote about the NZ Skeptics $100K challenge. We'd just launched it, in conjunction with the NZARH (New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists), who are putting up half of the prize money.
At the beginning of this month, we launched our $100K paranormal challenge. The idea is that if somebody can demonstrate a paranormal ability or product, they get to claim the $100,000.
It's only been a couple of weeks since the closing of the Health Committee accepting submissions on their Therapeutic Products Bill consultation, but the committee have already been running follow-up oral submissions. We know that there were 16,549 submissions to the bill, as with the help of a work colleague I've been able to scrape all of the submissions. This is a pretty high number for a bill, but still dwarfed by the number of submissions for the Conversion Therapy Bill a couple of years ago - over 107,000 of them! I'm currently in the middle of trying to run an analysis of all the Therapeutic Products Bill submissions, and if there's anything interesting in there I may write an article soon about what I find.
I received a company wide email at work recently from a colleague, where they were recommending an app to help people concentrate during work hours by minimising distractions. What caught my eye, though, was a justification given for the need for this app. Apparently if you've been distracted at work, it takes people on average 23 minutes - or, to be precise, 23 minutes and 15 seconds - to fully regain your focus and get back to your work properly. Now, as a skeptic, the specificity of that number alerted me that this was probably nonsense. On top of the unlikely nature of that number, I wondered what relevance “fully” regaining your focus is. If your focus (however that may be measured) is 95% recovered in the first 60 seconds after a disruption, and the rest of the time is a slow crawl to 100%, I imagine that's not so bad. If it's a linear recovery, then it's not so great.
The proposed Therapeutic Products Bill is currently at the Select Committee stage in parliament, and the committee is looking for feedback via its submissions process. For the first time maybe since the repealed Quackery Prevention Act of 1908, this legislation will attempt to police “alternative medicine”. Almost everything about regulating Natural Health Products (abbreviated to NHPs in this legislation) is new territory. The main issue with this bill, at least from our reading of it, seems to be that the government considers evidence of historical use of an NHP treatment for a condition to be “substantiation” of any health claims about it. So, basically, if a natural health product has been used in the past for treating a medical condition, whether it actually helps or not, the government will just assume that it is effective. This, to my mind, is reckless and dangerous.
I began my weekend on Friday night with a trip into the Auckland CBD to try to catch roving fundamentalist evangelical preacher Lincoln Russ.
It seems like the answer should be pretty simple - Anne Frank, of course. But sadly not everyone seems to accept this. After a brief hiatus, I've returned to watching the god-awful series Europa, a pro-nazi “documentary” series about World War 2. Last time I wrote about a claim that the voice actor for Winnie the Pooh had secretly recorded most of Churchill's wartime speeches because he was too drunk to do it himself. This time the claim is that Anne Frank couldn't have written the diaries attributed to her because, among other things, much of it is written in ballpoint pen, and that type of pen wasn't invented until the 1950s. I've transcribed what the documentary had to say:
We've covered Alex Jones many times in the past. Alex Jones is a fairly well-known far-right radio show host and conspiracy theorist. Most skeptics will be aware of his InfoWars website, which promotes conspiracy theories and certified-real fake news.
As Craig talked about last week, we had a really good time meeting up in Hamilton to visit the Mormon temple, and also enjoyed meeting fellow skeptics at the first Auckland Skeptics in the Pub meeting in a while. Speaking of which, the plan is to keep these meetings going - if you're in Auckland, and wanting to chat with like-minded skeptics, please consider going along to one of these meetings. I'm sure Craig will make you feel very welcome. And, if you can't make our in person meetings, there's always Skeptics in Cyberspace!
On the 28th of April 2020 Dr. Yan Limeng, a virologist from China, arrived in the United States requesting asylum and claiming to have evidence that COVID-19 was deliberately engineered and released by the Chinese government. She was a legitimate scientist working in the field, having published articles on coronaviruses in reputable journals like The Lancet and Nature. The FBI interrogated her for several hours, and she was then permitted to stay in the US. Her safe passage out of Hong Kong was arranged and paid for by Chinese dissidents in the US allied with Steve Bannon (Breitbart news founder and former chief strategist to President Trump).
One of the more controversial treatments the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) currently pays out for is acupuncture. This is controversial partly because of the lack of clinical evidence for acupuncture's efficacy, a fact that ACC has admitted in a past meeting.
NASA recently held a press teleconference where they announced that they will be investigating UAPs - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. This is a new term being used instead of UFOs, given that UFO suffers from both not being very descriptive (Unidentified things people see in the sky might not be Flying, and they might not be Objects - planets, clouds and aurora are often mistakenly thought to be mysterious objects, but none of them are flying; and the Northern and Southern aurora aren't objects, just cool light shows caused by solar particles), and having a lot of baggage attached to it - when people read UFO, they instantly think aliens. Here's NASA announcing their project:
In 2016, I made an Advertising Standards Authority(ASA) complaint against Weleda Arnica Cream and other arnica products about their misleading health claims on HealthPost's website.
There's something about bracelets that seems to attract pseudoscience.
I continue to monitor the emails sent out by the Voices for Freedom crowd. My reaction is usually a combination of disbelief and despair. My impression is that they're struggling to remain relevant. Now that the vaccine mandates have disappeared, they seem to be concentrating on all manner of whacky stances.
This week we're covering a few different topics. I look at some potential good news in relation to SIDS and look back at claims made about it in the past. We've got some bizarre claims of paranormal ability related to wind control (don't think I've ever come across that one before), and I look at the recent crash in cryptocurrency markets.
For those of you who listen to our fortnightly NZ Skeptics podcast, Yeah… Nah! (which is based on this newsletter), you'll be aware that I tested positive for COVID recently. It's been a week now since my first day of symptoms, and I'm feeling a lot better than I did a week ago. Craig was kind enough to cover for me on the radio talking with Graeme Hill last week, but thankfully I was feeling good enough to get back in the saddle yesterday afternoon. For those of you who listen to the radio, I highly recommend listening to Graeme's “Hill's Weekend” show on Sunday afternoons - Graeme always manages to line up a set of fascinating people to talk to, and I'm always grateful to be able to talk with him about skepticism and some of the nonsense we find out there in the world.
Country of Origin: Pleasant Grove, Utah, United States
Trigger warnings: Mentions of Suicide and infant death
We're currently putting together a calendar of historical skeptical events relevant to New Zealand - and we're aiming to have at least one event for every day of the year. It's been a lot of fun so far, and we've found a lot of fascinating stories about New Zealand that I'd never heard before, like:
Last October, I reported here on Thames Coromandel Mayor Sandra Goudie and her anti-mandate stance.
Sue Grey and Dr Matt Shelton have made some astounding claims about contamination of the Pfizer COVID vaccine. The specific claims are that there are undeclared nanoparticles in the vaccine.
So, back to COVID vaccines. This past week has seen a huge amount of activity in anti-vax circles.
The Lotus-Heart restaurant in Christchurch has chosen to take a stand against vaccine mandates, by refusing to let customers know if they require a vaccine pass, not promoting use of their COVID Tracer QR Code, and not having any system in place to check vaccine passes. As a result they have been fined $20,000 dollars by WorkSafe.
I can blame my skepticism on George Adamski.
But what is it, who's behind it, and does it work? Well, it turns out the answers to the first two questions will help us to figure out the third one.
I'm sure most people know the story of the Tiger King, a documentary series which became required viewing last year around the world when many countries went into lockdown. The series followed Joe Exotic, a flamboyant character who ran a big cat attraction and ended up behind bars for some of his questionable life decisions.
I was talking to a friend last weekend who works as a tradesman. He asked me, as a skeptic, what I thought of the coronavirus vaccine - did I think it was dangerous? And was COVID real? He's pretty sure the scientists aren't lying to him, but he's talked with a lot of colleagues who aren't so sure. Most of my friends are fairly skeptical, and a lot of the time I breathe the rarefied air of skepticism, so it was interesting to hear a perspective that I don't really come in contact with in my daily life - a friend who's intelligent, but has heard enough misinformation from the anti-vaccine crowd that he's becoming a little unsure.
The 96-hour fireworks industry is both a source of joy and dread for New Zealanders nationwide. Fireworks can only be sold privately in this country between November 2nd and November 5th, and while this period is an ideal lead-in to Guy Fawkes Night, those of us living near pyrotechnic enthusiasts know all too well that amateur backyard displays will be a feature of our lives until late into the summer.
In this week's newsletter I spend far too much time debunking a baseless vaccine injury claim about Celine Dion, convince my wife to use tin foil to treat what ails her, and talk about a tragic, and avoidable, death in New Zealand from COVID. And, after all of that, committee member Bronwyn has returned with another great article, this time looking with a critical eye at some claims that have been made about the damage fireworks can cause.
Back on YouTube channels again - you may have heard of the YouTube channel Veritasium. This one is a generally good science channel which has nearly 11 million subscribers.
Our Prime Minister has quite a reputation around the world, but did you know she's also able to cause earthquakes?
One of the interesting aspects of being part of NZ Skeptics is that we often get contacted by people to espouse views and theories that diverge from the mainstream, evidence-based views on things.
(In)famous German psychic Michael Schneider made the news recently when he claimed to know the exact coordinates of Madeleine McCann's body. Madeleine, aged 3, went missing in 2007 while she was on holiday in Spain with her family. Despite several leads over the years (and many psychics making predictions), there's been no definitive answer so far as to what happened to Madeleine - although there is one likely suspect.
I've seen adverts pop up recently on news sites, such as NewsHub and YouTube, that are selling a device which claims to be able to cut your power bill by 90%. Now, wouldn't that be nice - if it were true!
We've mentioned Sue Grey in the past. She's the Nelson-based lawyer and co-leader of the NZ Outdoors party, and full on conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer.
Over the next couple of months I'm hoping to visit a few interesting religious groups, to get a feel for them - what they believe, how they act, who attends their events. So, all being well, after this week's report into Christian Science you can expect to hear about the Theosophical Society, Druids, and maybe more!
I've been watching the Facebook page of Voices For Freedom. To me it's staggering the output of their page, with their frequent posts. often several a day. They have over 7,000 people following the page.
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 via a wick, in order to spread their smell. Of course, if nice smells were all these oils were about, there wouldn't be much for me to be skeptical about.
TV psychic Maurice Amdur, star of UK TV shows Maurice's Psychic World and Four Rooms has been left to pay £100,000 in legal costs after attempting to sue an insurance company for his loss of his psychic powers after a car crash.
Research by the American Center for Countering Digital Hate has revealed that almost two-thirds of all misinformation about vaccines being spread on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter arose from just twelve individuals and their associated organisations. And on Facebook they account for 73% of all anti-vax content.
NDEs were in the media this week. Radio New Zealand did an interview with Professor Bruce Greyson who has a book out After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond.
I'm guessing that Jami-Lee Ross, head of the failed conspiracy themed political party Advance NZ, has run out of money. Why else would he be planning to flog useless anti-5G pills to us?
There were many false claims made on 14th January, by Billy Te Kahika and his supporters outside the Beehive in Wellington. The most dangerous claim was that Covid-19 is no more deadly than the flu (2 million people have died worldwide at the time of writing). Among other strange things, they claimed that Jacinda Ardern is a communist who wants to keep putting New Zealand into lockdown, including organising one again on 15th January, the day after the protest.
For those who followed Craig's link last week to a colour therapy site, you may have thought that some of the claims on the site were pretty egregious - including such gems as “incurable means curable from within” and “synthetic fibres have a frequency that is detrimental to our health and well being”.
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.
Last week Craig promised that we would give you a link to a video Haunted NZ were producing about their recent investigation at a house in Pukekohe. We have now been sent a copy of the video that you can watch on YouTube. Craig also gave a good account to the NZ Herald of why the video, although slickly put together, contains no substantive evidence backing up Haunted NZ's claims that the house was ever haunted. Good work Craig!
In the last couple of days I've seen a lot of individuals and pages share links to a trailer for “Plandemic”. And I've had friends ask me what I think of it. They've commented that it looks and sounds pretty 'sciencey' but wanted another opinion. So, I had a look, and here goes.
Skeptic summary: Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel says people with an Asian background are staying at home to avoid racist comments from people assuming they might be carrying coronavirus (Covid-19). This is the harm of misinformation, and a reminder again that we can't be smug and think New Zealand don't have a racisim problem. It does.
At the 2019 NZ Skeptics conference I had the pleasure of meeting a student of Applied Mathematics and Statistics and SGU fan, Melissa Bather. I was impressed by her fan art of the SGU which she presented to them at the Gala Dinner. Luckily, we were dining at the same table in the Great hall, (along with two speakers – Jacinta Cording and Cara Santa Maria!) and Melissa and I got to talking.
Recently I came across the claim that cystic fibrosis (CF) can be cured by diet.
This is a part of a talk Craig presented at the No Barriers Conference at Great Barrier Island in September 2019
We've all heard and seen the marketing hype of supplements and alternative medicine in various media. They promise so much, how could anyone survive without them? The global supplement market alone is was worth USD $96 Billion in 2017 according to Research and Markets July 2018 report. The global Complementary and Alternative Medicine Market is estimated to be worth $196.9 Billion by 2025 by Grand View Research in their November 2018 report. In the same report they claim nearly two thirds of the developed and developing world have used one form or another of complimentary or alternative medicine.
Where: www.newshub.co.nz
SleepDrops is a New Zealand based company offering herbal/homeopathic products that are supposed to help you to sleep, although there's absolutely no evidence that they work.
A few weeks ago the Wellington Skeptics made their annual pilgrimage to the Go Green Expo. Billed as a Green Living and Sustainable Lifestyle Show, in reality the majority of stands push nonsense alternative therapies, making illegal medical claims about cherry juice, magnetic bracelets and turmeric shakes and scaring people about the dangers of dirty electricity, blue light, toxins and chemicals. There are also talks with titles such as:
HRV has had to pay out $400k for bad claims it made about its water filters. The interesting thing about this case, in my opinion, is that the fine was given because it was shown that HRV didn't have the evidence for its claims when it made them.
Last week a friend let me know that someone in my area was giving away kangen water for free - presumably in an effort to get people to sign up to buy a water filter.
Unorthodox claims about the origin of the Māori go way back. Co-founder of the Polynesian Society and erratic polymath Edward Tregear claimed in 1885 they were “Aryan”, based on such unlikely things as the similarity between waiū (milk: from wai, water and ū, the breast) and whey (Old English hwǣg). What follows is even less persuasive.
BBC - Video
HRV have plead guilty to 11 counts of misleading customers about their water filters. They were charged with making untrue claims about the levels of chemicals in New Zealand tap water, as well as their filter's ability to soften the water and help with eczema and dermatitis.
In Canada, a man has been selling bottles of medicinal hot dog water for $38. The organic beef hot dogs were boiled before being added to unfiltered water and poured into a vial shaped like a test tube. The seller, Douglas Bevans, said that the water would:
I was contacted by a journalist for the Sunday Star times a few days ago with some questions about Ken Ring. He's predicting an earthquake for June or July the 13th to 15th.
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.
The ASA have had issues recently with the amount of complaints us skeptics have been submitting to them for dodgy medical claims. It appears that as a result of a particular complaint about an acupuncturist they've decided to write a guideline for healthcare related complaints.
I'm in Nelson on holiday at the moment, and at a market today I saw a lot of nonsense - many bad medical claims being made about honey, jewellery, etc.
Daniel Ryan from the Society for Science Based Healthcare wrote a study looking at acupuncture advertising in NZ. He ran a targeted search for New Zealand websites making claims about being able to treat a list of conditions for which advertising claims are restricted by the Medicines Act.
A company is making claims about their soap made out of breast milk.
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.
The Pharmacy Council recently ran a consultation about a new proposed Code of Ethics, after they tried to weaken their code a couple of years ago to remove the requirement that pharmacists could only sell alternative medicines where there was evidence that they work.
iSynchrony has put together a plausible-sounding bit of bafflegab to justify what it sells. The reality of neurology is against their claims.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God has been handing out cross shaped vials of a "holy oil" which it says have been blessed in Jerusalem and can "activate people's faith" in order to treat medical conditions such as depression, addiction, heart problems and chronic pain.
A breatharian couple, Camila Castello and Akahi Ricardo, have publicly claimed that they live on "cosmic nourishment" from the "energy that exists in the universe and in themselves". They claim that they didn't eat at all for a period of 3 years, and that they hardly ever eat. When they do eat, it's a piece of fruit or some broth.
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.
Mark Hanna of the Society for Science Based Healthcare and I had an exchange over IM a few months ago, where we realised that there are so many bad claims being made for alternative therapies that if you picked a random combination of condition and treatment, chances are high that someone in NZ is making illegal claims that the treatment can successfully treat the condition.
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.
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):
Here's a press release that was sent out recently about a complaint I'd made to the ASA. As a result of the complaint, we uncovered the fact that Medsafe "grandfathered" in over a thousand of Weleda's homeopathic products. Medsafe registered these products as medicines without checking if there was evidence that they work, and despite a general understanding within science that homeopathy is ineffective. All they checked for is that there were no records of the products being unsafe, and given that homeopathy is normally nothing more than sugar pills or sugar water there were unlikely to have been any safety issues.
An incident at the Hawke's Bay Better Home and Living Show has made the news because it made the courtroom. There were sellers of two different brands of health bracelet at the show, Shuzi and Zenteq.
There is currently a bill working its way through parliament which proposes moving the decision to fluoridate water supplies away from local councils and into the hands of DHBs. This appears to be a very good move, as fluoridation is a health issue and DHBs are much better suited to weighing up the pros and cons than local councils are. Councils in NZ have historically been bamboozled by Fluoride Free NZ, our local anti fluoride group, and have in some cases made decisions to remove fluoride.
Mark Hanna at the Society for Science Based Healthcare has complained recently about the Napier Courier's column written by a local homeopathy business, called "Homeopathy Hub". the weekly column made many daft claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy, such as:
Despite much criticism of both the original broadcasts and the recent reruns, it appears that TVNZ are recording a new episode of Sensing Murder. The episode focuses on a murder in Napier in 2008.
Stuff have reprinted another article from Juice Daily, which claims that garlic, pineapple, a salt water gargle and chicken soup can help with allergies. Of course, this is all unproven tosh and certainly not good medical advice. Thomas Lumley at Stats Chat does a good job of deconstructing the article, going through all the links in the article and checking out the evidence for the claims. Unsurprisingly, the given evidence is very thin:
I totally agree that people should not be allowed to talk about treating health conditions if they have not received approval, and hopefully the upcoming Natural Health Products bill will be a step in the right direction in New Zealand for ensuring claims can't be made without good evidence.
Superfoods are foods that are touted as having high levels of one or more nutrients, with claims made that these nutrients can heal the body. These superfoods, such as kale, goji berries and chia seeds, are often sold at very high prices.
The most plausible benefits probably occur from the mixture fermenting, producing heat. It's pretty unlikely that anything else in the spa is helping your body.
Mark Hanna and I wrote a letter to the New Zealand Medical Journal about research we had completed showing that the majority of chiropractors break the Chiropractic Board policy on advertising. The policy states:
A Christian blogger has warned that mandalas in adult colouring in books could be dangerous. She suggests that the magical new age claims made about mandalas are true, that they have the ability to heal if you meditate on them and that a good way to do this is to colour them in. Of course, as these magical claims are not Christian, they must be bad and Christians should stay away from them.
An article on Stuff makes a lot of claims about these herbs and spices, but makes sure to qualify their claims with phrases such as:
Research is coming to light that antioxidants in food and drinks are not useful to aid health, and may actually be damaging to us.
"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."
The alternative to the New Zealand flag is “bad feng shui” and could bring bad luck, instability and even a stock market crash, a New Zealand feng shui consultant says.
The Government is hoping to attract more private money into science and improve how public science grants are spent. Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce released the Government's National Statement of Science Investment, its first national science strategy, in Wellington on Monday.
The internet is a seething pool of 'stuff ', and one of the challenges faced by those using it is to distinguish useful information from foolish fantasy. And there surely is a lot of the latter! Thus we find that...
Shepherd Bushiri has claimed in a video that he is walking on air.
Most of the serious claims have already been removed, after I talked to them on the phone, but Resene still talk about crystal energy and other nonsense concepts.
Living with a ghost hellbent on messing with neatly hung pictures has become a daily chore for the Stony River Hotel proprietors.
I've heard it said more than once that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) 'does no harm'. I suppose that could be true of a healthy person using something like homeopathy, where the only harm is likely to be to their wallet. But time and again, forms of CAM have been shown to do harm, and now we hear of another tragic, and fatal, case.
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.
Mark Hanna reports on how to use the Advertising Standards Authority to fight back against the promotion of questionable therapies.
Pills & Potions at the Cotter Medical History Trust, by Claire le Couteur. Otago University Press, 2014. RRP $25. Reviewed by Vicki Hyde.
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.
Michael Edmonds reports on his successful complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority over the dubious science used to promote BioMag underlays. For more on BioMag see NZ Skeptic 91. > > The BioMag website makes the following claim for their magnetic underlays:
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.
Stuart Landsborough conducts a small experiment which may land him in big trouble.
The Advertising Standards Authority provides an accessible platform for members of the public to take on the merchants of woo. This article is based on a presentation to the 2012 NZ Skeptics Conference.
The Bosnian Pyramids: The Biggest Hoax in History? Directed by Jurgen Deleye. VOF de Grenswetenschap. Watch online (www.thebiggesthoaxinhistory.com): €5.95. DVD: €19.95 (excl. shipping). Reviewed by David Riddell.
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 which, it is claimed, will protect against all types of Malaria and Haemophilus 200 for protection against H I B (this abbreviation is for Haemophilus influenzae type B which causes severe pneumonia and meningitis in infants).
There are times when the world seems to run along quietly from day to day, with very little happening. Then there are times like these. There are the ongoing aftershocks in Christchurch, many of them big enough in their own right to qualify as major quakes at any other time. There was the far larger earthquake in Japan, with its ensuing slow-motion nuclear disaster. There are wars and revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa which seem set to transform the politics of those regions. Millennial anxieties are on the rise once more.
A learning difficulties programme that claims to re-train the cerebellum makes some impressive claims which don't stand close scrutiny.
Chiropractic has had a colourful history since its invention in the 19th Century.
Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre. ISBN 978-0-00-728487-0. Fourth Estate, London. $26.99. Reviewed by Feike de Bock.
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 on the New Zealand market. To kick this process off the ministry has produced a consultation paper setting out high-level proposals for the scheme and called for submissions on it. The NZ Skeptics were among those who sent in a submission in time for the closing date on 17 May. Vicki Hyde and Michelle Coffey were the principle authors, with contributions from several other society members.
Some fields that claim the authority of science may be in need of an overhaul. This article is based on a presentation to the NZ Skeptics 2009 conference in Wellington, 26 September.
Ian Luxmoore investigates the claims for BioMag underlays.
Readers of the NZ Skeptic may find this a bit hard to believe, but New Zealanders seem to be a fairly sceptical bunch overall (Sunday Star-Times, 11 September).
Following on from online discussion and debate in the NZ Skeptic, a set of proposed motions to alter the society's constitution were mailed to all financial members four weeks before the conference, and voted on at the conference's AGM. Proxies were received from 24 members, all voting in favour of all four motions, and from two members giving their votes to the Chair.
It's Bent Spoon time again-the time when the Skeptics highlight the worst-and best-of the year's media.
Given that we're called the NZ Skeptics in virtually all instances-our website, journal, the flyers, the publicity posters etc-do we need to go through a formal change to the incorporated society's constitution to implement it?
A Listener article on Brazilian medium and 'miracle-worker' Joao de Deus has taken the annual Bent Spoon Award from the New Zealand Skeptics.
Just once in a while, speaking up can make a difference.
Powermax magnetic water-treatment conditioners have been controversial since they were introduced in New Zealand in 1998. Now they've been withdrawn and the Consumer's Institute believes customers are due a refund.
It will be interesting to see how the government handles the latest health scare which is being helped along by the usual sensationalist media reporting. How about this example: "The men who made the poisons that blighted a New Plymouth community…." (Sunday Star Times, 12 September 2004).
Lately, however, a vogue called postmodernism has challenged all claims to knowledge, including the work of scientists and historians. Science and empirical research supposedly are approaches that elites insist upon in order to strengthen their own standing. There are ways of knowing other than the rational. There is no one reality, only different perceptions and paradigms, all equally valid.
Fear of litigation is a powerful stimulus to over-investigation and over treatment. In an atmosphere of litigation phobia, the only bad test is the test you didn't think of ordering.
This article was originally presented on National Radio's Sunday Supplement
John Welch finds that the sexual abuse industry rolls on unabated.
The Misinformation Age has arrived at last
Howard Bezar and Denis Curtain
This year's Bent Spoon Award from the NZ Skeptics has been won by Wellington Hospital for encouraging their nursing staff to claim special healing powers through the laying on of hands.
I just wanted to make a comment on the clipping from the Christchurch Star concerning "nuclear extinction" which appeared on p.9 of the NZ Skeptic periodical. In the clipping, a refutation of this possibility was based on some writings of one Bruce Cathie who is claimed therein to be a mathematician among other things.
In which John Riddell continues his pub night discussions.
New claims that pollen grains on the Shroud of Turin link it to pre-eighth-century Jerusalem were made in August by researchers at the International Botanical Congress in St. Louis. In fact, the claims are based on earlier, scientifically discredited data.
John Riddell looks at a costly alternative to glue sniffing.
More from last year's Skeptics conference.
THE opening salvos in the US Skeptics' new Council for Media Integrity's campaign to improve the treatment of science in television entertainment programming were fired in Los Angeles -- the heart of the TVand movie entertainment industry.
Britain's The Skeptic magazine celebrated its tenth anniversary with a Top-Ten survey of paranormal phenomena of the decade.
At the AGM, and in a subsequent letter from a member, the question was raised "what are we saving money for?". Certainly the Skeptics bank account is a reasonably healthy one, after ten years of frugal saving on the part of Treasurers past and present.
This is the second half of the article begun in the last NZ Skeptic
When I received through the mail a coloured brochure from Time/Life advertising a series of videos and cassettes titled "Growing Younger", I was surprised to see that I could learn from Time/Life via their series how to develop an "ageless body". In addition I could learn to "help reverse ageing" and that the series could "open the door to a life free from the effects of aging" (sic).
This article originally appeared in the excellent US magazine Skeptic_, edited by Shermer, (Vol 2 No 3) and also forms Chapter 4 of Shermer's book_ Hope Springs Eternal: How Pseudoscience Works and Why People Believe in It_. It's a thought-provoking piece which should be handy reference for any skeptic's library. This is part one of three._
An article in NCAHF reminded me of past activities with respect to joint manipulation. Following a one week course I embarked on a short-lived career in spinal manipulation which is very easy to learn and causes a greatly inflated belief in one's ability to "cure" spinal ailments.
The Skeptics began in simpler times. Some of us recall when the burning issues of Skeptical enquiry were whether Uri Geller bent spoons, whether Russians were using telepaths to communicate with submarines and whether Lyall Watson had stumbled on a Philosopher's Stone called Supernature. He certainly seemed to be turning something into gold.
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 doctors are pouring into New Zealand. There has not been a corresponding drop in consultation fees in a local aberration of the law of supply and demand. Fortunately, the Northern Region Health Authority has moved to cap any further increases in doctor numbers which have already cost an extra $20 million in subsidy claims. (Christchurch Press 24/4/95)
Postmodern thinkers claim to have broken the fetters of logic that have characterised rational discourse since the enlightenment. They claim to have ushered in a new age of freedom of communication, that rationality is no longer the only, or even the major, "communicative virtue" and that social, psychological, political and historical considerations must all take precedence over logic and reason.
We need to immunise ourselves against this virus too.
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.
Richard Milton has written this book as a "hang on a minute" reservation about Darwinism and its apparent unquestioned acceptance by mainstream science from geology through to biology (and in one chapter political science) in the manner of the small boy who questioned the reality of the Emperor's new clothes -- "Look Mummy, all those university professors, all those Nobel Prize winners, have got no actual proof to cover their hypotheses with".
It was a surprise to many outside observers, especially those who don't well understand the Skeptics. Paddy Freaney, Rochelle Rafferty, and Sam Waby, the trio who gained world attention early this year by their claim to have glimpsed a living moa in the Southern Alps, were invited to put their case before a meeting of Canterbury Skeptics.
There is a worldwide epidemic of satanic child abuse allegations. Are they true? Has satanic child abuse happened here in New Zealand?
A Sprite in your Spirit, a Bogle in your Benzine, a Fury in your Fuel, a Greyhound in your Gasoline. With acknowledgement to the oil company which, many years ago, urged us to "Put a Tiger in your Tank."
This article is an abridged version of the fourth article in a series on philosophy and the paranormal. Here Dr Grey discusses David Hume's analysis of miracles and his view that belief in miraculous events is always unjustified. He also investigates the nature, virtues and dangers of different skeptical viewpoints.
On open access computer bulletin boards, any entity with a theory can expound on it at length. Many do -- usually to a very unappreciative audience. A seemingly-large proportion of such expositions are surprisingly similar in style. The following scale (tentatively attributed to John Baez of Usenet sci.physics) will help readers establish just how crackpotted something is...
Can a cotton wristband and a plastic button alleviate seasickness? The British Consumer's Association thinks so, but scientific evidence indicates otherwise.
Also, as a NZCSICOP newcomer, I'd like to respond to Carl Wyant, who asked why skeptic groups rarely attack the Big Groups. Firstly, skeptics challenging religious beliefs or their legal implications do so elsehere as atheistic or political groups. Secondly, religious belief is untestable, so a skeptic cannot point to refuting evidence. The argument reduces to philosophy. Thirdly, pseudoscience is a lot more irritating than something not even pretending to be scientific.
The above is a suggested logo for NZCSICOP. It was designed by a Wellington Skeptic, Hugh Young. Hugh has provided the following commentary:
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.
The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (Inc.) seeks nominations for its annual journalism/media awards for 1987-1988. Awards will be presented at the annual meeting of the Committee, held this year at the University of Auckland, August 20-21.
Astrological betting systems which claim to win on Lotto are bunkum, according to a group which investigates the unexplained.
Our NZCSICOP archivist, Phil Bradley, continues to build our Archive. Phil needs from members cuttings appropriate for the collection.. Please keep your scissors handy and send Phil reports of paranormal claims which appear in your newspaper. We depend on our members for this. His address is:
Since the founding of CSICOP in 1976, and with the growing numbers of localized skeptical groups, the skeptic finds more ways to state his or her case. The broadcast and print media, along with other forums, provide more opportunities for us to be heard. For some of these occasions, we have the luxury of carefully planning and crafting our response. But most of the time we have to formulate our response on the spot. But, regardless of the circumstance, the critic's task, if it is to be carried out properly, is both challenging and loaded with unanticipated hazards.
The Dominion Sunday Times, 4 October 1987
The New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (inc.)
It's thumbs up for Sunday News in a long running battle with self proclaimed psychic Colin Amery.
SIR, M L Lester (Post, Sept 26) says "The New Zealand Skeptics Society has repeatedly claimed that there is a widespread (nationwide) problem here in New Zealand with fake psychics, mediums, charlatans, magicians and so on".
In the after glow of our first annual convention, NZCSICOP members will have to feel pleased by the progress of our organisation. The meeting itself attracted considerable media attention, all of it favourable, and discussion of our aims and purposes continues to reverberate in letters weeks later. Our membership now stands at just short of a hundred and it is still growing. And well it must, for a group such as ours has much work to accomplish. Unless we have enough people scattered nationwide who are willing to take an active part in our projects we cannot flourish.
Any medium who demonstrates communication with spirits under controlled conditions will be able to collect $232,000, Dr David Marks, the chairman of New Zealand Skeptics said yesterday.
Claims that energy from quartz crystals can treat diseases may be illegal, says the New Zealand Skeptics Society. The newly formed society is considering its first legal action as a result of claims by touring healer, Mr Edmond Harold.
I would like to thank Dr David Marks and the Committee of the N.Z. Skeptics for inviting me over and to Dr Dennis Dutton and Ricky Farr for their hospitality. I am glad to be at the first convention of the New Zealand Skeptics. Having organised the first two conventions in Australia, I know how much work is involved and am glad someone else, Dr David Marks, is organising this one.
To investigate scientifically and with an open mind, claims and events of an apparently paranormal nature. 2. To report the results of these investigations and where possible, to provide rational, scientific explanations. 3. To provide reliable information about paranormal claims. 4. To encourage a more critical attitude to pseudoscience and to bogus paranormal claims, and to alert people to the dangers of uncritical acceptance. 5. To increase public awareness of the difference between legitimate science and pseudoscience. 6. To investigate the psychological, social, and ideological factors behind belief in the paranormal.
Our recently founded "Skeptics Society" is growing fast. We now have almost 50 paid-up members through the country and, by the time this reaches you, we should be a legally incorporated Society. Through individual and media communications NZCSICOP is providing a counterbalance to the ever-increasing number of paranormal claims. The response from the media has to date been most receptive and encouraging, and NZCSICOP seems to be fulfilling a genuinely-felt need for a rational and skeptical approach to magic, myth, and mystery. It has been a pleasant surprise to encounter many hard-nosed skeptics in the media and perhaps they too have grown weary of the psychics and mediums who seem to claim all but demonstrate nothing.