Articles tagged with "disease"

I received an email the other day from Joanne O'Brien, who according to her website is a Professional Organiser, Image Consultant and Health Coach. Now, I'm not going to deny that I am probably in need of all three of these services, but despite that I have no idea why I received this email from her (although I accept that I may well have signed up for a newsletter at some point). The email was advertising the health aspect of Joanne's repertoire, promoting an “amazing treatment” called Rife Therapy. It said:

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.

This is a part of a talk Craig presented at the No Barriers Conference at Great Barrier Island in September 2019

It's always good to see people who aren't known to me in the skeptical community making complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. Dr Holmes complained to the ASA recently about a Sanitarium Weet-Bix advert for their new gluten free product. In the advert a woman says:

Georgian College in Toronto has cancelled a course in homeopathy, due to negative feedback.

Raw water - the latest foolish fad to hit people's screens, pockets, and in some instances I'd guess their toilet paper expenditure as well.

As a parent, I know what it's like to worry about whether you are doing the right thing for your child. When my daughter was born, I couldn't quite believe that after just a few days in hospital we'd be going home in sole charge of a small infant. Didn't they realise we were unqualified?!

The group responsible for bringing Vaxxed, an anti-vaccine movie, to Australia and New Zealand is still causing issues in our country. There are more screenings of Vaxxed coming up, including one in Wellington that I will try to attend:

A bravo was awarded at last year's conference to Graeme Hill for his ongoing promotion of science and challenging of pseudoscience on Radio Live.

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).

This is a transcript of a talk given at the 2007 Skeptics Conference. Parts of it were also published in the NZ Family Physician in early 2007. This paper can be found at www.rnzcgp.org.nz

A couple of months ago we were visiting my brother, and got talking about a friend of his, who had enrolled in a counselling course. It turned out that the course had come to be dominated by some rather staunch Maori elements, and my brother's friend, as one of only two non-Maori on the course, was embroiled in a dispute in which racial lines were very clearly drawn. But he was confident he had ammunition which would knock the course leaders off their perch, in the form of a book, Ancient Celtic New Zealand (see Feature Article). This purported to show that Europeans had in fact colonised this country thousands of years ago, and had established a thriving neolithic culture, until they were displaced by Maori early in the last millennium.

Dr Neil McKenzie, better known to music lovers as Dr Jaz, died in May following a long battle against a brain tumour (Bay of Plenty Times, May 15 2003).

The World Health Organisation has issued a new warning against non-essential travel to the entire Western Hemisphere following renewed concerns about the spread of Severe Loss of Perspective Syndrome (Slops).

These are nervous times. By an astounding coincidence, as I wrote that line and paused to think of what to put next, I had a call from a friend to tell me there was a Sars case at the Waikato Hospital and to ask whether, in my other role as a subeditor at the Waikato Times, I would want to pass that on.

Even in a secular age, it's hard to surrender the religious habits of old

As Professor Cole explained at the last Skeptics' Conference, "Quantum Booster"-like devices have been around a long time.

Firstly, I must commend the September 1999 Midland Renal Service Nephrology newsletter. It warned that anyone presenting with unexplained or worsening kidney disease should be questioned about their use of "natural" remedies.

NEW AGE theory holds that practically all cultures had a tradition of using medicines (mostly herbal) and that there is a danger that "Western medicine" will replace these, so losing irreplaceable knowledge.

Samuel Hahnemann: The Organum of Medicine,

The Spectator, 20 September 1986

The N.Z. Federation of Spiritual Healers (Inc)

Your state of mind can make you sick or speed your recovery from illness. This idea is hardly new but only now is it gaining respect and attention from Western doctors. The result is a variety of new medical therapies being developed for the future. This approach, called holistic medicine, is based on four general principles.

When I entered medicine more than fifty years ago, few maladies could be effectively treated. Lobar pneumonia, diabetes, pernicious anaemia, malaria and a few others. Patients with other disorders received careful medical attention while the illness ran its natural course,' unless the doctor made it worse. A warm relationship with the doctor eased the burden of serious illness for the patient and his family. Relentless killers which raged then have now vanished; poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, diphtheria, syphilis and smallpox. Childbirth was hazardous to mother and baby. There was no specific treatment for psychotic illness. Psychiatric research related mainly to taxonomy. A quarter of asylum inmates had general paresis, which killed them in a few years; today, thanks to penicillin, it is rare. 50 years ago, surgeons could treat many life-endangering conditions. They thought that physicians were pretentious tinkerers whose professional high spot was a brilliant diagnosis confirmed by a brilliant post-mortem.