Grant Jacobs • Apr 06, 2010 •
Today Elspeth McLean, writing for the Otago Daily Times, reports of a national alliance between pharmacists and general practitioners. She reports that this initiative focuses on improving use of medicines through reducing wastage. Perhaps memoranda of this kind might also be a means that GPs could ask that the ’remedies’ that pharmacists’ … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Mar 18, 2010 •
You know how the classic scene goes. Naïve ambitious husband describes his Do-It-Yourself plans… and ‘skills.’ Wife stands there, wordless, with ever-widening eyes forecasting a disaster. (Source: Wikipedia.) That’s how precisely researchers and medics feel watching non-medics and non-scientists determined to ’do it their way’ on things that affect others’ lives. Sure, a few will … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Mar 13, 2010 •
Science writer and journalist Simon Singh, who faces a libel suit from the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for writing that a number of chiropractic claims of treatment of disorders unrelated to the spinal cord such as asthma were ’bogus’ has written in his column that it will be the last. He is resigning his job in order … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Feb 26, 2010 •
The atheist bus campaign has me thinking... what if there were a similar campaign against homeopathic remedies? Or an on-going series of advertisements questioning dubious practices of all kinds? Fridays are good for day-dreaming, right? NZ Bus seems to have had an attack of tremulous timidity in the face of ’some’ complaints and have withdrawn their … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Feb 24, 2010 •
I know I really shouldn’t… But I can’t help myself. This video, picked up via undergraduate biology student Michael Hawkins’s blog (which has just been restored to him after considerable fuss) is too good to pass up. Can’t beat British humour. The alert will note the signage in the ’hospital’. In … Read More
Darcy Cowan • Feb 24, 2010 •
Earlier this year I wrote a post (along with fellow Sciblogger Grant) concerning the sale of homeopathic remedies in pharmacies. Monday night saw the release of England’s Science and Technology Committee’s “Evidence Check 2″ report on Homeopathy (also ably covered by Grant). One of the issues covered by the report is that of pharmacy responsibilities [...] … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Feb 23, 2010 •
Today England's Science and Technology Committee published it's "Evidence Check 2" report on Homeopathy. Overall, it's a resounding "no" to homeopathy. The report comes down hard on UK government agencies relationships to homeopathy and recommends stronger transparency in the commercial sector, too. The report was to look at government policy, particularly the NHS (England's … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Feb 11, 2010 •
The recent stunt by the New Zealand Skeptics Society might be very amusing, but it fails to add much to the debate on homeopathy. The skeptics swallow large amounts of homeopathic remedy to attempt to show its overall uselessness. Unfortunately, this demonstration is no more significant than an atheist demanding that God strikes him dead [...] Related posts: … Read More
Guest Author • Jan 28, 2010 •
By Vicki Hyde On January 30, a concerted global mass overdose will take place, but no-one will die because the “medication” of choice will be homeopathic. Homeopathic medicine consists of water or water dripped onto sugar tablets; the UK-based 1023 campaign aims to highlight that fact and protest against pharmacies touting such a product as medicinal. To mark the … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Jan 26, 2010 •
In recent comments to an article I wrote on homeopathy in New Zealand pharmacies, some readers suggested that because the remedies were popular, they must be OK. To give a little light relief from the weightiness of the topic, let’s illustrate the illogic of using popularity in lieu of demonstration of effectiveness by paradoxially considering the morbid … Read More