Articles tagged with "treatment"

Clavicular, better known to his mum and dad as Braden Peters, is a 20 year old internet influencer who promotes an extreme beauty regime known as “looksmaxxing”.

The Cochrane Reports are comprehensive reviews that summarise and evaluate the results of clinical research on healthcare interventions. They are produced by an international network of researchers and healthcare professionals called the Cochrane Collaboration. These reports are widely respected for their sound scientific approach, and often include meta-analyses of multiple studies.

A few years ago at the Society for Science Based Healthcare, we attempted to tackle what we saw as a problem with the fundraising website Givealittle.

In early August, MediaWatch in Australia released a segment about low-level laser therapy, an Autism treatment now available in Queensland, that had been profiled in local media as successful in helping non-speaking Autistic children speak.

MDMA assisted psychotherapy is looking a little rocky lately. The Journal of Psychopharmacology has recently retracted three research papers supporting the treatment over data integrity concerns, and the FDA has rejected it as a treatment for PTSD.

It has been reported that former supermodel Elle Macpherson refused to follow the medical advice of 32 doctors to have chemotherapy following a breast cancer diagnosis, instead opting for holistic alternative therapies.

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:

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.

The suggestion that fringe medicine is more successful than orthodox medicine (NZ Skeptic 3, editorial) was presumably put forward at challenge). It is a suggestion encountered quite frequently these days but rests on two major fallacies. Firstly, medicine is narrowly described as a cure for disease. Secondly, it is assumed that people who recover have been cured by the treatment received. The success of real medicine is illustrated by a cutting from Scientific American, Oct, 1936. It gives the average life expectancy for white males and females in America. In 1900, it was: males 48, females 51, In 1936; males 59, females 63. Compare these with recent figures, The great successes of orthodox medicine have been in the prevention and eradication of diseases. The list of once threatening diseases in N.Z. includes; tuberculosis, polio, typhoid, diphtheria, cholera and smallpox.

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.

The condition Irlen Syndrome is a popular diagnosis for children with learning issues, and is described as a perceptual processing disorder rather than an optical problem. It has failed in rigorous evaluation time after time and is basically a medical zombie. It was first described by an Auckland teacher, Olive Meares, in 1980.

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:

In the last newsletter I wrote, I discussed an open letter, penned by Mary Hobbs. Since publishing one of our contacts wrote to supply some more details. It appears that Mary and her husband are Scientologists, and deeply involved in that organisation, even making regular trips to Sydney to clear out a few Thetans, or whatever it is that they do. They even hosted Tom Cruise some time ago on a visit to NZ.

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.

Finally this week, and related to the Streisand Effect above, comes the tale from David Farrier, of the popular Webworm blog.

The drug Ivermectin is an anti-parasite drug (used on worms and head-lice), and has been touted as a treatment for COVID-19. On the anti-vaxx Facebook groups I monitor, it's frequently cited as the favoured treatment for COVID-19, along the same lines as Hydroxychloroquine - though that seems to have faded a little now.

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.

Mark Honeychurch recently covered a Newshub story by Sarah Templeton in our newsletter (Reiki is Here To Save Us All) about a visit to a Reiki person by the reporter. (Practitioner, in my humble opinion, is probably the wrong word).

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.

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.

President Trump will be promoting Dr Mehmet Oz to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, which is a little worrying. Trump's no stranger to making what look like very bad staffing decisions, and this one is no exception. Dr Oz is well known in the US, having risen from the Oprah show to having his own show. On his show, the Dr Oz Show, he's promoted so many nonsense treatments that he's been told off by the FTC and summoned to talk in front of a senate sub-committee.

There's been some interesting local research on people with health conditions doing their own research. The Southern Cross Health Society has looked into whether people look up their symptoms on google before visiting their GP. They talked to GPs about their patients, and found out that an increasing number of them are coming into their practices with knowledge taken from the internet of what is wrong with them.

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.

A Reiki meeting has been deemed newsworthy by the Taranaki Daily News.

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.

"The results argue for more trials of the fish skins for burns", the vets said.

18 classes of health product are being de-funded by the NHS in the UK, including 7 that are blacklisted:

Last week an article was published on Stuff talking about how a young New Zealand woman who has had cancer (acute lymphoblastic leukemia) since she was 14 is going to spend $20,000 on an alternative treatment for her cancer - Ozone Therapy. The clinic says about this therapy:

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.

The infamous Brio clinic in Thailand has sucked in unsuspecting kiwis, promising to treat them with unconventional therapies for cancer. One unfortunate victim, Holly Devine, died after raising $55,000 on Givealittle for treatment at the clinic, but before attending the clinic.

A woman has made the news today because she has been denied treatment for a medical condition, symphysis pubis dysfunction, related to her pregnancy. Southern Cross Insurance have said that the reason for not paying for treatment is that pregnant women in New Zealand are eligible for free healthcare, and so their policies don't cover pregnancy.

Somebody asked Sandra Clair from Artemis, who writes for the Herald and sells natural remedies:

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.

A young woman died this week, while she was trying to raise $70k to fund and alternative cancer treatment at the Brio Clinic in Thailand. Amanda Ferreira also died last month from cancer. She had been to the Brio clinic once, and had been raising money to have further treatment there. Common treatments are heat therapy, ultrasound and pH transformation (probably alkaline).

Chris Savage, an ex police officer from Australia, has a long history of being outright dangerous. He's anti-vaccine, and claims to be able to treat autism and cancer with magnesium (chloride) and DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) infusions. He's currently in New Zealand, and has been treating people while claiming he's a doctor.

How the standards of skeptical thinking can be used to reject ineffective charities in favour of effective charities.

An osteopath in Christchurch has been disciplined for treating a patient's toothache by touching her breast.

One in 13 men will develop prostate cancer before the age of 75.

How much does the ACC spend on acupuncture? Mark Hanna investigates.

Alison Campbell learns some interesting facts about water chemistry

Online claims that magnetic wrist and ankle bands have therapeutic benefits have had to be removed following a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (NZ Herald, 24 December).

Matthew Willey recalls the days before the internet, and an old friend

This could be the shining hour

A heartstring-tugging appeal in the NZ Herald doesn't tell the full story.

NZ Skeptic issues 96, 97 and 98 contained articles presenting different viewpoints on the 'Unfortunate Experiment' at National Women's Hospital and its aftermath. Wellington registered nurse and NZ Skeptics treasurer Michelle Coffey continues the discussion in this web-only special.

Linda Bryder responds to an article in our last issue.

The 'Unfortunate Experiment' at National Women's Hospital has entered the national folklore as a notorious case of medical misconduct. But there is still disagreement about what actually happened.

Tim Hume (Sunday Star Times June 21) has written a good account of traditional Maori Medicine (Rongoa Maori). The Health Ministry provides $1.9 million annually for this nonsense. That money would pay for approximately 1000 hip replacements.

I thought they were all bogus! A Motueka man, Michael Dawson, was fined $4000 for describing himself as a chiropractor. This upset Nelson chiropractor Dr John Dawson who was quoted as saying his "unrelated namesake tainted the industry." Quite apart from Dr Dawson's pretentious use of the title 'Dr', his description of chiropractic as an industry is particularly apt. It is a massage business based on aggressive marketing and creating a non-existent need for gullible people to have their backs rubbed and clicked.

There is something rotten in the state of China, a country where greedy people are quite happy to poison their own citizens in the name of profit. Milk powder is assayed for protein content by detecting nitrogen levels. Melamine, being a nitrogen-rich compound, gives a return in this test which indicates for protein, so if you have a poor milk product or it has been watered down, melamine can be added to make the product look as if it is up to normal protein levels.

Despite a series of studies showing it to be ineffective, ultrasound continues to be widely used by physiotherapists.

Cranial osteopathy is based on the notion that the bones of the skull can be manipulated. Even doctors have been taken in by this nonsense. The following account is by a registered medical practitioner, Dr Putative (not his real name).

Members of the Royal Society and other eminent doctors have written to every hospital in the UK urging them not to suggest anything but evidence-based medicine to their patients (Guardian Weekly Vol 174 No 23). This was a timely reminder given that Prince Charles had just been urging the World Health Assembly to promote alternative medicine. The letter writers reminded people that alternative and complementary medicine needs to be evaluated on the same criteria as conventional medicine. This was precisely the same argument most of us took when making submissions to MACCAH.

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.

I do not confine myself to examining the conduct of alternative medicine. The conventional medical literature also presents rich examples of foolish and fanciful activity. Have a look at bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7527/1231?etoc which has the title, Randomised controlled trial of animal facilitated therapy with dolphins in the treatment of depression. Surely there are more important research topics than this nonsense. Another recent favourite of mine was an MRI scan of two people having sex inside the scanner. One finding was that the penis is boomerang shaped during coitus. bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/319/7225/1596

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.

During my recent overseas trip I had two stopovers in Hong Kong. The South China Morning Post (3 October) reports that demand from patients has led to a policy where acupuncture treatment will be allowed for patients recovering from stroke and cancer. This is rather an unfortunate move because a very recent study found no difference between acupuncture and sham acupuncture in their ability to perform daily activities of living or in their healthrelated quality of life. The study involved 116 patients who received 12 treatment sessions during a two-week period. [Park J and others, 2005: Acupuncture for subacute stroke rehabilitation. Archives of Internal Medicine 165: 2026-2031, 2005].

New Zealand soils are deficient in selenium and this can cause serious health problems for animals. A 500kg animal needs about 1mg selenium daily. There is no evidence that New Zealand adults need selenium supplements and this situation has been described as "a deficiency in search of a syndrome".

Traditional Chinese medical practitioners have given herbal remedies to Hong Kong Sars patients along with Western drugs, and public hospital officials said more patients might get similar treatment despite uncertainties about whether it helps.

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).

These books are all subtitled "A Reference for the Rest of Us!". Perhaps I'm prejudiced but as far as I'm concerned, dummies is a better term for anyone who uses alternative medicine. Having said that, this book, written by a chiropractor and a science writer with a PhD in the history of medicine and science, is not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

The following correspondence between nursing lecturer Sue Gasquoine and Skeptics' chairentity Vicki Hyde is reproduced with the permission of the participants -ed.

It is hard to be sure what Mike Houlding is on about in his rather opaque letter but I gather that he is lumping the use of clairvoyants, homoeopathic remedies and ADHD under some collective rubric of quackery.

Dr John Welch goes eyeball to eyeball with the iridologists, and takes a look at some famous faces

The placebo effect has long been of interest to skeptics for its presumed role in alternative medicine. The Skeptics' Dictionary (http://www.skepdic.com) has a lengthy entry, describing a placebo as an inert substance, or fake surgery or therapy, used as a control in an experiment or given to a patient for its probable beneficial effect. It goes on to add the effect has at least three components.

Vicki Hyde presents the year 2000 chair-entity's Report

Thanks to reader Alan Pickmere for drawing my attention to colon cleansing. In a radio advertisement Alan heard the claim that the average adult has up to 10kg of preservatives and toxic waste in their colon. The actor, John Wayne had 20kg removed at autopsy, doubtless dating from the time spent venting his spleen against commie actors facing Senator Joe McCarthy's inquisition. Come to think of it, perhaps he should have "vented" more often.

John Welch started writing for the magazine in Issue 16, but a posting with UNSCOM to Iraq meant he had to relinquish responsibility for the column. He is delighted to once again have the opportunity to indulge his interest in bizarre medical beliefs and wishes to thank Dr Neil McKenzie for his efforts to date.

Winter is here, and it's time for all good skeptics to heed the call and flock to Auckland for the annual conference, where illuminating conversation and inspired addresses await. And then the same good skeptics can generate battle strategies to cope with all the fuss about the Millennium and the imminent end of the world. In the meantime, here's a copy of the Skeptic to read while making these important plans.

ONCE again the medical profession has made a mess of its relations with the public, and I'm not talking about Gisborne smear takers.

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.

THE line which sharply demarks mainstream medicine from alternative medicine is the line of science. It is possible to cross that line, however. Any alternative treatment which is tested in a rigorous scientific manner and found to be safe and effective will be incorporated into mainstream medicine; it will have crossed the line.

Home water treatment systems are often promoted on the basis of the purported health (rather than aesthetic) benefits of using them. This is particularly in relation to urban drinking water given the full treatment -- coagulation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection -- where such claims usually constitute misleading advertising. In this review I will focus on a number of misconceptions about the health benefits of water treatment, examining each assertion in its wider context. The ensuing discussion applies less to rural water supplies, where valid reasons often exist for use of treatments -- eg removing nitrate or protecting against giardia.

At the Skeptics' conference we were treated to one official's view of the status of scientific medicine relative to alternative treatment systems and beliefs. This presentation reinforced many of our fears that modern medicine is truly the victim of its own success. Now that so many of us live to old age, and find that pharmaceuticals and surgery can do little to prevent inevitable decline, we are encouraged to turn to away from "Western orthodoxy" towards "alternative" systems of other, more "spiritual and "holistic cultures".

The Canterbury ME (chronic fatigue syndrome, or CFS) are up in arms over proposed tighter controls on patients receiving both invalid and sickness benefits. CFS patients want funding for "residential detoxification services and "subsidies on natural remedies". CFS is a classical psychogenic illness and as such it is quite improper for any affected patient to be on any long-term benefit on their own terms. Because of self-denial these patients resist any sensible suggestions on treatment and end up chronically unwell in a fulfilment of Abraham Lincoln's statement that "most folks are as happy as they make up their mind to be."

Surprising results from a US study of the effectiveness of counselling on reducing juvenile crime.

The recent decision to award compensation to a lawyer who suffered depression because his bank loan was turned down is but one example of increasingly bizarre decisions by the ACC (Anything-goes Compensation Corporation). Money has also been paid out to victims for "memories" of childhood sexual abuse but in one recent case the alleged offender was aquitted and we are still waiting to see whether ACC will ask for their money back. (see Skeptic 34).

Neither Nutrasweet nor sugar-rich diets produce any change in children's behaviour. (New England Journal of Medicine 330:301-307, 1994)

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.

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".

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.

In the last issue I discussed how quackery can be practised by New Zealand doctors with impunity, "if they do so honestly and in good faith." Alaska has a similar clause which only disciplines maverick doctors if they harm their patients. In fact, the latest NCAF newsletter outlines how a Dr Rowen has been appointed to the state medical board after "curing" the governor's wife of lumbago by extracting one of her teeth. The link between the tooth and the back was made by an electro-acupuncture circuit using a Vega machine.

Many people will remember Dr Bill Morris's entertaining autobiographical talk at the last Skeptics' conference in Wellington. From his presentation, we extract this discussion of what is still the most persistent and potent medical effect known to the human race.

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?

In reference to Ruth Walker's article "Absurdities of Creationism" [Skeptic 22], I would like to remind fellow Skeptics that it is not only "fundamentalist" Christian schools that teach creationism.

Last year there was an excellent article published in Metro magazine about a young boy, Kurt Boyle, with a mysterious illness causing paralysis. The family had featured earlier on the Holmes show when they alleged that their son had been mistreated by the Hospital staff, who were treating him for a psychological problem.

An Auckland 'doctor has been struck off the medical register for "disgraceful conduct", the Medical Council said yesterday.

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.

The Lancet article on survival of patients with breast cancer attending the Bristol Cancer Help Centre (BCHC) has provoked widespread comment and badly shaken the confidence of those who believed that, at the very least, complementary therapies in cancer couldn't do any harm.

In issue 16, I reported on an AIDS treatment scam run by a British doctor, James Sharp, and an Iraqi vet. This had been exposed as such by an investigative journalist.

"Repetitive strain injury": an iatrogenic epidemic of simulated injury.

I was first conscious that I had met Procrustes about 20 years ago, though I did not at that time know his name. At the beginning of a course of instruction on how to examine medical patients the clinical tutor had us don headphones plugged into an amplifier while his stethoscope wandered over the chest of a lady who each year donated her time to the greater glory of Medicine. She had a diseased mitral heart valve and we were invited to identify the "low pitched rumbling diastolic murmur" and "There! Listen carefully!

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.

The Spectator, 20 September 1986

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.

(Address to Joint Australia/New Zealand Health Inspectors Conference, Christchurch, 15 October 1987)

What price progress as many seek alternative remedies?

Peter Dady, MD, MRCP, Director, Oncology Department, Wellington Hospital.

The suggestion that fringe medicine is more successful than orthodox medicine (NZ Skeptic 3, editorial) was presumably put forward at challenge). It is a suggestion encountered quite frequently these days but rests on two major fallacies. Firstly, medicine is narrowly described as a cure for disease. Secondly, it is assumed that people who recover have been cured by the treatment received. The success of real medicine is illustrated by a cutting from Scientific American, Oct, 1936. It gives the average life expectancy for white males and females in America. In 1900, it was: males 48, females 51, In 1936; males 59, females 63. Compare these with recent figures, The great successes of orthodox medicine have been in the prevention and eradication of diseases. The list of once threatening diseases in N.Z. includes; tuberculosis, polio, typhoid, diphtheria, cholera and smallpox.