Category: Skeptical Article

November 1, 2011

Skepticism in the Bush

by Russell Kelly

There is plenty to keep a skeptic busy in the bush; alternative medicine abounds and belief systems involving the weather and animals are plentiful.  The recent drought spawned a plethora of water diviners but lacking confidence in the Bureau of Meteorology, many believe that the best indicator of impeding precipitation is the squawking of Black Cockatoos. The myth has been around for at least 100 years but for some reason the squawking during the drought seemed to have less effect than the nude dance in the paddock.

Emu oil is currently very fashionable to cure a wide variety of maladies and snake-oil salesmen find easy pickings especially with weight loss scams. A long-running study has confirmed that rural women are more obese than their city cousins and they are more likely to use alternative medicines, so there are plenty of candidates for the wacky products.

Medical conditions triggered by pollens and sprays are endemic in the bush and so are the charlatans who peddle ‘natural’ allergy therapies including the instruments to test allergy susceptibility. The TGA has recently closed down the web site of one of our local operators who with her gadgetry could diagnose the offending allergen and then provide a rapid cure using the latest in homeopathy potions.

View More Skepticism in the Bush

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October 19, 2011

The Pharmacy Guild Deal with Blackmores

by
Dr Ken Harvey

The Pharmacy Guild says its deal to promote Blackmores complementary medicines (CMs) has been withdrawn in view of “media reporting of the endorsement which was ill-informed and inflammatory”. My own view is that the deal itself was ill-informed and inflammatory. It involved an undisclosed payment by Blackmores to enable GuildCare dispensing software to prompt pharmacists entering prescriptions to on-sell Blackmores “Companion” products.

The four Guild-endorsed Blackmores products were a probiotic to be promoted with antibiotics, zinc with blood pressure drugs, coenzyme Q10 with vitamin D3 for statins and magnesium with proton pump inhibitors.

Dr Ken Harvey

The National Prescribing Service (NPS) and others have pointed out that there is no good evidence to support the routine use of these supplements with the prescription drugs targeted.

In addition, this practice would unnecessarily add to the “medication burden” experienced by many patients taking multiple drugs, including compliance difficulties, increased cost and potential drug interactions.

Finally, it presents ethical problems for GuildCare (who were recommending one brand only) and for individual pharmacists (who would benefit financially if they went along with prompts that may not be in their patient’s best interest).

Several polls have shown that View More The Pharmacy Guild Deal with Blackmores

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October 8, 2011

Skeptics In the Pubs – How are We Travelling?

You’d have to say “very well”.

Victoria has adopted the “Skeptics In The Pub” idea with enthusiasm. If you turn to the back page of your latest Skeptic magazine , you’ll see that of the eight new Australian regional groups listed, six are in Victoria.

We’ve discussed Skeptics in the Pubs before;

Your Very Own Skeptics In the Pub

Great Ocean Road Skeptics

New Skeptics in the Pubs

Here’s a brief look at each group in alphabetical order.

View More Skeptics In the Pubs – How are We Travelling?

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September 29, 2011

Recent Controversies in Chiropractic and RMIT Courses/Clinic

by Mal Vickers

Hello all, this is the first post of a two-part series on my concerns about RMIT University and chiropractic. In this first post, I’ll mention some of the recent controversies in chiropractic. In the second post, I’ll write about my visit to RMIT Open Day and my attempt to ask an expert in chiropractic some questions about its practices.

For those that might be wondering – why do this? I’m a former RMIT student. RMIT’s association with pseudoscience, in my opinion, diminishes the greater and more worthwhile subjects such as engineering, arts, humanities and science-based academic courses offered in other departments of the University.

For a quick refresher on the sceptical and historical view of chiropractic you might try the Skeptics Dictionary entry.

RMIT claims the following:

RMIT is a leader in chiropractic tertiary education offering the world’s first government-supported chiropractic program.

RMIT offers undergraduate courses or you can go all the way and receive a PhD in Chiropractic. Indeed it does appear that RMIT is the leading institution educating chiropractors in the Australian.

Is chiropractic at RMIT really worthy of government (read: tax-payer’s dollars) support? View More Recent Controversies in Chiropractic and RMIT Courses/Clinic

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September 28, 2011

Pharmacy Guild of Australia’s Deal With Blackmores

Spare a thought for the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. They have a public relations problem following their proposed deal to incorporate Blackmores Companion range of dietary supplements into GuildCare software.

Fortunately, we have a solution to the PGA’s problem in the form of an inspirational song. If you want to cut to the chase, you’ll need to go to the end of the article. Otherwise, please read on:

Background

Australian pharmacies supply millions of prescriptions each week. In Australia, each prescription drug has survived rigorous clinical testing, sometimes over many years; yet from time to time, complications arise with some patients with some drugs.

The Guild came up with a brilliant coup. View More Pharmacy Guild of Australia’s Deal With Blackmores

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September 24, 2011

So Was Einstein Wrong?

The world was abuzz yesterday with the news that “Einstein was Wrong!” … because some scientists at CERN shot neutrinos from Switzerland to Italy, and they apparently got there ever-so-slightly faster than light.

Einstein Bunny 2If it’s true, such a thing would be a violation of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, and a pretty major kick in the pants for physics.

Skeptics were understandably quick to jump on the result and say … let’s just wait a minute here.

View More So Was Einstein Wrong?

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September 12, 2011

The “Stop The AVN” Campaign

by Ken McLeod

The Australian Vaccination Network (AVN)

The Australian Vaccination Network is based on the New South Wales north coast wedged between Australian’s largest population of aging hippies and younger new-age alternative lifestylers. The first thing that is necessary to understand about the AVN is that the title is totally misleading. It claims to be a discussion forum about the pros and cons of vaccination. In fact the focussed message emanating from the group is simply and unequivocally that Vaccination is Evil. It is led by American citizen Meryl Dorey. Her claims of membership numbers range from 300 to 2,500 depending on what day it is and the phase of the moon. For many years the AVN had a free ticket to disseminate their propaganda. For this we must thank a scientifically illiterate and lazy Australian media, who in the mindless pursuit of “balance” always turned to Dorey for a quote whenever vaccination or disease was mentioned.

Stop The AVN (SAVN)

Strangely enough, SAVN began life as an immunisation awareness campaign. In 2009, baby Dana McCaffery died from Pertussis (Whooping Cough). Pertussis had become very rare in Australia, due to a long-term efficient vaccination program against the disease. Dana McCaffery was too young to have been immunised against Pertussis; however, the local community’s vulnerability to the disease had been seriously compromised by recent low immunisation rates. The NSW Health Dept asked the parents if they could use Dana’s story to promote immunisation. The parents agreed, the story went public, and they were pelted with vile abuse from AVN supporters. That led to a Channel 7 TV debate led by Mike Munro, a leading Australian journalist. View More The “Stop The AVN” Campaign

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September 1, 2011

Flogging a Dodgy Cancer “Cure”? Say What You Like, the TGA Won’t Stop You

by Dr Mick Vagg, Clinical Senior Lecturer at Deakin University School of Medicine & Pain Specialist at Barwon Health

This article has been reprinted from The Conversation website where it appeared on 1/9/2001.

If a manufacturer claimed its product was “clinically proven” and could relieve your symptoms of bloating and fatigue, would you believe it? What about if you were chronically or terminally ill and had tried almost everything else?

The latest audit of complementary therapies found as many as nine out of ten companies made misleading claims about their weight loss products, vitamins, lotions, pills and gadgets.

The release on Tuesday of the Australian National Audit Office’s (ANAO) report on the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (TGA)
performance as regulator of complementary medicine products makes for alarming reading. View More Flogging a Dodgy Cancer “Cure”? Say What You Like, the TGA Won’t Stop You

2 Comments
August 17, 2011

Previous Product Reviews

or,

Blasts from the Past

Given that many of our readers have only recently become acquainted with us, we thought we’d revisit some of the more entertaining product reviews that Vic Skeptics has performed in past years.

The Electrostatic Gravitator

Our mate Barrie Johnson combines his two greatest loves, electronics and fossicking: and he knows a bit about electronics – most of his working life was spent as electronics maintenance officer in a major Melbourne hospital.

Barrie Johnson with gold nuggets

In semi-retirement in the early 2000s, Barrie opened a business in the heart of the Victorian goldfields,  servicing and repairing  detection equipment. One day a friend brought in a flash-looking device called The Electrostatic Gravitator.

He’d been so impressed by a prominent advertisement in a glossy American fossicker’s magazine that he bought one, notwithstanding its considerable expense. Unfortunately, once unpacked it failed to live up to expectations.

Barrie promised to look into it (literally). What he discovered was a maze of components and wires. The weird thing was that most of the circuits were open. Things weren’t connected to other things.

Barrie concluded that not only could the Gravitator not work, it was never designed to work. He reported back to his disappointed customer, then went to the trouble of posting a warning to the magazine that it was hosting ads for a dubious product, including technical details. That, he thought, was that.

View More Previous Product Reviews

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