April is Autism acceptance month, and amidst the annual articles reminding everyone that lack of eye contact and an inclination for stimming isn't the worst thing in the world, the ghost of Andrew Wakefield's deception rears its head again.
In a win for skeptics everywhere, On 11 January 2021, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) in the U.K. moved to suspend accreditation of the Society of Homeopaths (SoH), because they found that the SoH “did not appear to have prioritised public protection over professional interests in its handling of complaints or governance processes, which undermined confidence in its ability to ensure its registrants were compliant with its own Code of Ethics and position statements.”
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.
An organised group of homeopaths offering bogus treatments for autism has been written about in the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The article talks about how more than 120 homeopaths in the UK are part of this group, called CEASE (Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression), and the therapies they are offering are supposed to remove "toxins" that are apparently causing autism in children, and many of these toxins are meant to have come from vaccines.
A petition on change.org has been signed by 1,000 vets asking for the UK to blacklist homeopathy as a treatment that vets can prescribe for animals. Over 2,500 people have signed it in all.
Issue 115, 2015 | I have just read your editorial and really enjoyed it. You make a lot of very good points and, as a teacher myself, I can relate to some of the experiences that you have described.
Author and journalist Ian Wishart claims Taranaki could be the last resting place of a giant lizard- like "dinosaur" and is issuing a challenge for it to be rediscovered (Taranaki Daily News, 10 May).
Government hypocrisy is rife amid the talk of a "knowledge-based economy"
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?
Samuel Hahnemann: The Organum of Medicine,