NZ Skeptics put their Money where their Mouth is

From April 1st 2023 the NZ Skeptics, along with the NZ Association of Rationalists and Humanists, are offering a one hundred thousand dollar (NZ $100,000) prize as part of the NZ Skeptics Challenge – and this is definitely not an April Fool’s joke!

Until recently the well known skeptic Stuart Landsborough, of Wanaka’s Puzzling World, offered a $100,000 psychic challenge. After three decades of supposed mind readers and spirit talkers attempting to win his prize and failing, he ended the challenge upon his retirement. The NZ Skeptics consider their new challenge to be the “spiritual” successor of his amazing work.

To celebrate this event, the NZ Skeptics are publicly challenging three prominent Kiwis, all of whom are profiting from making unproven claims, to apply for the prize money:

  • Ken Ring, who claims he can predict the weather and earthquakes by looking at the moon (his predictions are available in his $120 almanac)
  • Kelvin Cruickshank, psychic, who believes he can communicate with the spirits of dead people
  • Kirsten Taylor, naturopath and herbalist, who sells a homeopathic, herbal and flower essence remedy that she advertises as being able to help people sleep

To win the prize, and conclusively prove skeptics wrong, these people would need to agree to a controlled testing protocol, where their ability would be examined scientifically and rigorously. An independent judge would oversee the testing to ensure both parties followed the agreed protocol.

Craig Shearer, chair of the NZ Skeptics, has had enough of people making bold claims but not backing them up with evidence.

“Far too often, we see people make the news because they have a supposed special ability that defies science. We’re pretty sure that science is right, and they’re wrong – and we’re putting our money on the line to show this. We’re willing to put in the effort to test these people, and if they can show they’re real, they deserve the money. We see plenty of claims, backed up by testimonials from “satisfied” customers, but these anecdotes don’t constitute good evidence.”

Hema Paterson, president of the Rationalists, agrees.

“If anyone’s going to talk about how they can speak to ghosts, heal the sick through prayer, or see auras, they’d better have some pretty good proof that they’re not deliberately or accidentally deceiving people.”

Although the challenge is available through invite only, the public are welcome to submit their name and the details of their ability to the NZ Skeptics if they think they can do something that defies well-established science. Or they can send in the name of someone else they think is pulling the wool over people’s eyes. Anyone can send the Skeptics a tip-off by emailing them at challenge@skeptics.nz, or by visiting https://skeptics.nz/challenge. The rules of the challenge can be read at https://skeptics.nz/challenge/rules.

2021 Conference Speaker Links

Here is a list of all the speakers from our 2021 conference, with some handy links if you want to know more about them.

NZ Skeptics Announce their 2021 awards, and Dr Simon Thornley wins the Bent Spoon

Every year the New Zealand Skeptics presents its awards to people and organisations who have impressed us or dismayed us, and this year it’s been hard to pick our winners because there have been so many choices!

The Bent Spoon Award is given to the organisation or individual which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue. In the age of the COVID pandemic, there have been many candidates, but one individual stands out:

Dr Simon Thornley, this year’s winner, is a Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. Dr Thornley stands out as an academic who has opposed NZ’s approach to dealing with COVID. He was one of the founders of the COVID PlanB group which opposed lockdowns, and signed onto the Great Barrington Declaration.

Dr Thornley has associated himself with fringe elements in NZ’s anti-government and anti-vaccine movements (such as Voices for Freedom) and has appeared as an expert witness for lawyer Sue Grey’s cases challenging the government’s rollout of the COVID vaccine. His comments have included personal attacks and threats of legal action against other NZ scientists, and has claimed they’re corrupt and will be convicted of crimes against humanity.

Most recently, Dr Thornley promoted the use of Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID, and co-authored a paper which tried to link mRNA vaccines with miscarriages and other pregnancy complications, strongly recommending against vaccination for pregnant persons. Happily, this paper has now been retracted.

As an academic, we would expect he would know better. May he suffer the shame of being awarded the Bent Spoon! 

The New Zealand Skeptics recognises excellence in the media or in other high-profile people with our Bravo Awards. The pandemic has provided a fertile breeding ground for misinformation and disinformation. But many journalists and academics have stepped up and written pieces which explain the science behind COVID, the response to it, and also calling out those promoting misinformation and pseudoscience. The NZ Skeptics have chosen to award a record number of Bravos this year.

Siouxsie Wiles from University of Auckland, for making national and international appearances on the science behind COVID.

Toby Morris, cartoonist at The Spinoff, for creating animated explainers with Siouxie Wiles – with some great examples of effective science communication. These tools have been shared extensively, including being used by the World Health Organisation.

Charlie Mitchell, from Stuff, for a variety of investigative articles on pseudoscience promoters.

David Farrier, who runs the popular Webworm blog, for his commentary on people and groups promoting conspiracy theories; Billy TK, Sue Grey, Peter Mortlock of City Impact Church, the Tamakis from Destiny Church, and more.

Michael Baker, from the University of Otago Department of Public Health, for his science communication around COVID.

Hilary Barry, of TVNZ’s Seven Sharp, for her promotion of vaccines and for being a thorn in the side of anti-vaxxers. 

Keith Lynch, of Stuff, for some great articles around COVID, explaining complex science in an easy to digest manner.

Helen Petousis-Harris, of the University of Auckland, for her great written responses to COVID vaccine myths.

Alison Campbell, blogger and retired lecturer from the University of Waikato, for her efforts helping journalists respond to COVID misinformation, her blogging and her constant presence on social media, calling out and correcting pseudoscience in the comment threads.

Finally, the Skeptic of the Year award is given to the skeptic who has had the most impact in skepticism within New Zealand. The award comes with a year’s free membership to the NZ Skeptics, and $500 of prize money.

This year the award is being given to a group rather than an individual – FACT Aotearoa.

The FACT group describes themselves as a grass-roots information organisation, working as a resource base for media, health professionals, activists and educators. They’ve been quick to jump on misinformation being promoted online and in public.  A few of their prominent wins include contacting venues to shut down in-person anti-vaxxer events, and initiating a complaint to NZ’s Law Society about anti-vax lawyer Sue Grey.

Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill Oral Submission

The submission below was given via a Zoom call to Members of the Justice Committee on Wednesday the 15th of September 2021, as a follow-up to the Society’s written submission. The submission was presented by committee members Bronwyn Rideout and Mark Honeychurch, and MPs asked questions after the submission was read out.

The Evidence

We often hear of conversion therapy as a thing that happens in the United States of America – controversial figures such as Joseph Nicolosi, and groups like NARTH and Exodus International. So it’s been horrifying to read stories in the news over the years, and especially recently, about New Zealanders who have endured this dubious therapy.

At the NZ Skeptics, we’re all about evidence. There is no good quality evidence that conversion therapy works, and Wikipedia rightly calls it a “pseudoscience”. Not only this, but there’s a lot of evidence that conversion therapy is harmful.

Professional bodies around the world have evaluated the evidence, and broadly agree that conversion therapy should never be used. In New Zealand, the relevant professional bodies consider the practice to be against their code of ethics.

We know there was a study conducted by Robert Spitzer that is often used as evidence for the efficacy of conversion therapy, but Spitzer retracted the study, and later said “I was quite wrong in the conclusions that I made from this study. The study does not provide evidence, really, that gays can change.”

J. Michael Bailey’s 2016 review of the scientific literature concluded that “There is no good evidence that sexual orientation can be changed with therapy, and we strongly doubt it can be.”

A 2017 literature review from Cornell University looked at 47 scientific papers on conversion therapy. Of the 13 papers that were able to come to a conclusion about the therapy, 1 claimed it was successful and 12 claimed it was ineffective or harmful. The review concluded that “there is no credible evidence that sexual orientation can be changed through therapeutic intervention… There is also powerful evidence that trying to change a person’s sexual orientation can be extremely harmful.”

The evidence is clear. Conversion therapy does not work, but it is harmful.

The Legislation

The international studies we’ve seen show that most people go through conversion therapy because of their religious belief, and this is often due to pressure from their church. This has also been the case for many of the hundreds of New Zealanders who have been through conversion therapy.

Not that numbers should matter, but we’re at the point now where half of New Zealanders are not religious. There really should be no exemption for religious groups to be able to continue facilitating or offering conversion therapy. We hope that this bill will ensure that any individual – or organisation – involved in providing conversion therapy will be held accountable.

We know that health practitioners are not above making bad decisions, such as offering unproven therapies. For example, some GPs in NZ currently offer their clients therapies such as homeopathy that we know through scientific testing don’t work. It’s not a stretch to imagine that some health practitioners would consider it acceptable to offer conversion therapy. We therefore think it is unwise to give health practitioners any kind of exemption in this bill.

Many countries, such as India, Taiwan, Brazil and Germany – and parts of Australia, Canada and the US – already have conversion therapy bans in place, and Israel and the UK are currently in the process of introducing a ban. Several other countries, such as Argentina, Fiji and Samoa, have a specific ban on health professionals offering conversion therapies. We’re a little behind the curve on this important issue, but it’s great that as a country we’re finally doing something about it.

Given the lack of evidence of efficacy of conversion therapy, and the clear harms it causes, it seems like a no-brainer that we should have a law banning the practice. We hope that this new piece of legislation not only becomes law here in New Zealand, but also that it doesn’t end up being watered down to the point that it becomes ineffective. We hope to see this legislation become something that properly protects those who are at risk from being given conversion therapy, no matter who is organising or providing it. These at-risk people absolutely do not deserve to be told that their sexual orientation, or their gender, is “wrong”, and that they can be “fixed” through the use of a pseudoscientific, damaging treatment.

Submission on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill

The NZ Skeptics’ Submission

on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill

About us

The NZ Skeptics are a New Zealand/Aotearoa charity dedicated to education and the promotion of evidence-based practices, both in government policy and elsewhere in New Zealand public life. Healthcare decisions are an important part of this ideal, and we strongly support any measures that seek to follow best evidence and help protect consumers from harm. 

Our View

In line with our sister organisations in Australia and the United Kingdom, it is the position of the NZ Skeptics that we support the banning of conversion therapies as outlined in Section 5 of the proposed Act.

‘Conversion’ or ‘reparative’ practices incorporate a wide range of activities that seek to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. In both the past and present, such therapies have included so-called clinical treatments such aslike ice-pick lobotomies, electro-convulsive therapies, and aversion programmes that include pharmaceutical regimens that induce vomiting while church-based organisations utilise exorcisms, and intensive praying sessions (either in groups or one-on-one).

To date, no evidence has been produced in New Zealand or internationally to support the effectiveness of conversion therapies. Instead, the only consistent outcome of the practices listed above is harm and life-long trauma to those who have endured them. Reputable organisations worldwide such as the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association,  Royal Australian College of Physicians, the NHS, and the United Nations have acknowledged and published similar findings.

The absence of support from these and major regulatory and professional bodies and employers has consequently driven such practices underground. The treatments and their providers are unregulated; neither undergo rigorous and ongoing continuing education programmes or annual auditing, as required of any other professional charged with the care of the minds and bodies of New Zealand citizens.

Religious freedom is not violated when banning conversion therapy. Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief stated to British Members of Parliament that the banning of conversion therapy in no way violates freedom of religion under international law because of the state’s obligation to protect the life and dignity of LGBT+ persons.

Our Recommendations

As part of our mission to promote evidence-based policy-making and healthcare, the NZ Skeptics continually seek the advice of experts and findings of contemporary research with which to inform our positions on a variety of topics. The evidence is clear that conversion therapy is worse than ineffective, indeed it appears to be outright dangerous; provision of such therapies should be seen by New Zealanders as akin to fraud.

However, the banning of conversion therapy is not simply a health issue, but one that encompasses personal, religious, political, and societal beliefs and practices about gender diversity and identity; Elements which cannot be appreciated with statistics alone. Ongoing persecution of LGBTQIATakatāpui+ communities internationally is an ongoing concern for our organisation, and we see the presence of conversion therapy in New Zealand as a terrible proof of the insidiousness and persistence of bigotry both within our country and outside our borders. To this end, NZ Skeptics finds it vital to consider the voices and recommendations of persons who are either experienced in matters of conversion therapy, or who have been the targets of such unethical treatments, and place our support behind them.

In general we support the wording of this Bill. Here are our thoughts on the parts of the Bill that we feel need changing to ensure it adequately protects people from harmful conversion practices:

Clause 5

We do not think that health practitioners should be exempt from this Bill. We consider that the caveats in 5 (2) are sufficient to protect health practitioners who are “offering legitimate support or therapy”, and we are concerned that health practitioners could conceivably claim to be offering conversion therapy within their “scope of practice”. As such, this appears to be a loophole that we would like to see closed. We recommend the removal of 5 (2) (a) from the Bill.

We do not believe there should be an exemption for religious people or groups in the Bill, and we hope that MPs will resist any pressure from religious groups for any kind of religious exemption to be added. Similarly, we do not think that it would be appropriate for an exemption for parents to be added to the Bill. We recommend that no further exemptions are added to the Bill.

Clauses 8 and 9

We believe that organisations (companies, charities, societies, churches) are often involved in offering, organising and promoting harmful conversion therapy, and would like to see the inclusion of the ability for charges to be brought against organisations as well as individuals. We recommend the inclusion of organisations as well as people as parties to an offence.

We believe that the inclusion of only imprisonment is inadequate to allow for effective sentencing. We would also like to see a fine added, to give judges more options for choosing an appropriate sentence for the offending, and for organisations we would like to see the inclusion of appropriate sentencing options, such as the removal of charitable status. We recommend the addition of more sentencing options, such as fines.

Clause 10

We think that clause 10 is important, and that consent should not be considered a defence in this piece of legislation. We recommend that clause 10 is kept in its current state.

Clause 12

We believe that the requirement of clause 12 for consent from the Attorney-General before prosecution can occur is an unnecessarily high bar. Our understanding is that Attorney-General consent is usually required for laws where there is a significant risk of misuse of the legislation. This does not appear to be likely to be the case for a conversion therapy law, which is designed to protect minority groups who are at risk. We recommend the removal of clause 12 from the Bill.

Other

We believe that monitoring and feedback are important, and that for new legislation to be effective, it should include a review process. For example, it would be good to see this law, when enacted, go through a review of the process and its effectiveness within its first five years, and to allow for amendments as necessary as a result of the review’s recommendations.

Thanks

Finally, we would like to gratefully acknowledge the efforts of Shaneel Lal and InsideOut in their campaign, and support the important work they have done in this area.

Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission on this important piece of new legislation.

Submission on Hate Speech Proposals

NZ Skeptics submission on the Ministry of Justice Proposals against incitement of hatred and discrimination

The NZ Skeptics

We are a New Zealand/Aoteaoroa charity dedicated to education and the promotion of evidence based practices, both in government policy and elsewhere in New Zealand public life. We believe that all government policy decisions should be informed by the best available evidence from relevant groups. We believe that legislation should be based on reality and evidence, rather than on unproven ideas.

The Proposals

Our concern is regarding Proposal five, with the addition of incitement to discriminate to the Human Rights Act.

We accept that inciting others to hate a group of people for their religious belief can be (and has been) a problem in this country, and that it makes sense to have some level of legislation to protect people from this behaviour. 

Our approach is generally to criticise ideas and behaviours rather than people, and our approach is to never intentionally incite hatred of a class of people, even those we disagree with. We tend to single out people who we think are out to scam people and knowingly and egregiously promote misinformation.

We think, however, that even using insults to incite others to hate a religious belief, or to discriminate against people who hold a religious belief, should not necessarily rise to the level of being a crime.

It is important for beliefs to be open to criticism – including through the use of ridicule and insults. Beliefs are different from innate properties of a person or group of people, such as their sexuality, gender, race or national origin. A belief is not an intrinsic attribute of a person, but rather the act of believing is a personal choice. Because of this, there should be latitude for robust criticism of religious beliefs, and of those who choose to follow those beliefs – even if that criticism could be construed as being insulting or abusive, and perceived as inciting others to discriminate or hate.

It is easy to think of examples of religious groups in this country who regularly speak out against the rights of those they consider “immoral”, such as gay and lesbian couples, or those who choose to have an abortion. We do not think that it should be illegal for people to be able to use insults as a way to criticise these groups for example, even if these insults are intended to incite others to discriminate against them. We think there are occasions where groups should be discriminated against, in order to lessen their ability to spread dangerous misinformation. Denying hateful religious groups a platform from which they can speak messages of hate could be argued to be discrimination, but we think that the ability to use activism in this way is legitimate and should remain legal. We would not want to find ourselves being threatened with a lawsuit if we asked our members to boycott a hateful religious group, and used insulting language in order to make our request.

Our worry, also, is that extreme religious groups with whom we disagree, such as those who criticise gay and lesbian couples, might be afforded a different level of shielding from prosecution simply because of their perceived traditional religious roots.

We think that it is important for any legislation around religion and hate speech to differentiate between religious believers and religious beliefs. We would like to see allowance made in legislation for speech that may be considered as inciting discrimination or hatred, when that speech is aimed not at people but at their beliefs. This is especially important when these beliefs are not only wrong but also dangerous or hurtful, such as religious shunning, gay conversion therapy or taking money from the poor. Our ability to criticise these erroneous, damaging beliefs should not be curtailed.

We think that any protections given to religious groups should also be afforded to agnostics, atheists and other non-believers. Especially when it comes to ethnic groups with high levels of belief, non-believing members of those ethnic groups can find themselves targeted by hate speech for their choice to not believe. We see no reason that these people should not be protected by hate speech laws in the same way that religious people will be under the new proposals.

Pharmacy Council Code of Ethics Review Consultation

freestocks-org-nss2eRzQwgw-unsplash

The NZ Skeptics are a voice of reason in New Zealand, and aim to promote the scientific method and evidence-based decision making throughout the public sphere. Healthcare decisions are an important part of this ideal, and we strongly support any measures that seek to follow best evidence and help protect consumers from harm. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to have a say in this consultation.

In a similar manner to the “Pharmacy Council Complementary and Alternative Medicines – Statement and Protocol for Pharmacists”, we will refer to these products as “CAM” and “CAM products” within our submission. However we are hesitant to use this acronym because of its inclusion of the word Medicine, where these products have not proven themselves to be medicines.

1. Can you think of any ethical values for the pharmacy profession that appear to be omitted from the revised code?

Yes.

We believe that the current 2011 Pharmacy Council Code of Ethics, which states (in clause 6.9) that pharmacists must “Only purchase, supply or promote any medicine, complementary therapy, herbal remedy or other healthcare product where there is no reason to doubt its quality or safety and when there is credible evidence of efficacy” is, in principle at least, a good guideline for pharmacists.

Many pharmacies currently supply and promote CAM healthcare products for which there is a very obvious lack of credible evidence of efficacy – even with this code of ethics in place. We are concerned that the general trend in New Zealand has been for pharmacies to sell more CAM over time, presumably driven by a situation where many pharmacies struggle to make enough money to remain viable businesses when selling prescription and over-the-counter medicines alone. An example of this trend is that there is an annual Pharmacy Award for the Best Complementary Healthcare Campaign.

Pharmacists, and pharmacies, enjoy a high level of trust from the public due to their knowledge and expertise, and the importance of the task of dispensing prescription medicines and advising patients that has been entrusted to them. Unfortunately, in order to improve their viability as businesses, many pharmacies appear to have decided to trade on that trust and sell CAM products that purport to improve people’s health, but which do not have good quality evidence backing their use.

The vast majority of these CAM products are unlikely to ever be shown to be efficacious (due the lack of any plausible mechanism of action), and in the short term they are harmless at best – if we ignore their direct financial cost to patients. In the long term, however, these ineffective products are likely to damage patients’ health literacy, making them less knowledgeable about what constitutes good healthcare. They will also tend to make patients less likely to seek proper medical care for their health conditions, instead relying on these unproven products for their future health needs.

If pharmacies find that they need to supplement their income by selling products other than prescription and over-the-counter medicines, there are many products that they could sell that are not health related. We think that it would be much better for pharmacists to avoid the risk of ethically unsound practices, and we would expect the Pharmacy Council’s new Code of Ethics to be an aid in ensuring that pharmacies behave ethically in this regard and do not sell any products that have not been proven to work.

Unfortunately the new code of ethics appears to weaken the stance taken by the 2011 code, rather than strengthening it; only requiring that a pharmacist satisfies themselves that a product is appropriate for the patient (clause 1g).

In essence the proposed new code seems to be worded in a way that, in a perfect world, patients would be protected from the sale of ineffective health products. All pharmacists, and pharmacy staff, would have a good level of knowledge of the evidence base for all CAM products they sold, and they would be free of all biases.

However, in reality, there are a wide range of beliefs about CAM amongst pharmacists and pharmacy staff – and not all of these beliefs accord with the best evidence for these products.

The “secret shopper” exercise undertaken by members of the NZ Skeptics two years ago showed that pharmacies, and pharmacists, are more likely to promote an ineffective product (homeopathic products, in the case of our exercise) than to warn of its ineffectiveness. If the behaviour that we saw in 2015 is indicative of the general stance that pharmacies hold with regard to CAM, and we think that this is a fair conclusion, we believe that pharmacists are often not acting in the best interests of the patient when it comes to CAM. They may not be in possession of the best available evidence, and there is also a real risk that a pharmacy’s need to make money can cloud proper judgement when it comes to selling these products.

For these reasons, we consider that leaving individual pharmacists to be the judges of what constitutes a good level of evidence for a CAM product is not prudent. We believe that it is the Pharmacy Council’s responsibility to help pharmacies navigate the myriad of CAM products that are currently on the market, and ensure that they are not selling ineffective products to patients. We think that the Pharmacy Council should not be scared to provide a robust level of guidance for pharmacists when it comes to both unproven and ineffective CAM products.

We believe that this guidance can be effected in part by creating a list of classes of CAM products that have been shown to be ineffective (such as homeopathy), and which should not be sold in pharmacies. The Pharmacy Council should also target the most popular CAM products being sold in pharmacies, and create information resources for both pharmacists and patients explaining the current evidence, or lack of evidence, for these products. These resources could include booklets that are made available in pharmacies, and given out when these products are purchased, and web pages that are placed online, either on the Pharmacy Council’s website or a site specifically for providing information about CAM products.

2. Considering the explanation of the term “patient” and equivalent terms in the key terms (key terms):

a. Do you think the term “patient” is the best word to use, most of the time, to express the relationship that exits between the pharmacist and the person they are directly or indirectly caring for or providing health care information to?

Yes.

We think that the word “patient” is a positive step towards impressing on pharmacists the importance of the relationship they have with the public, and the trust that the public place in pharmacists to behave in a way that is in individual patients’ best interests.

b. Are there any specific clauses where you can think of different term that could be more appropriate?

No

3. Considering the new clauses that relate to the sale of complementary and alternative medicines (CAM, clauses 1g, 4h and 4hh): Do you find it clear that the Council is not opposed to the sale of CAM when they have demonstrated benefits for patients, have minimal risks, and the patient is making an informed choice?

No.

We think that the clauses do not make it clear that they are not opposed to the sale of CAM “when they have demonstrated benefits for patients, have minimal risks, and the patient is making an informed choice”. What the clauses appear to do, instead, is to allow the sale of CAM when an individual pharmacist believes that these products “have demonstrated benefits for patients, have minimal risks, and the patient is making an informed choice”.

This is a subtle, but important, difference. We think that the proposed code would allow for a pharmacist to sell homeopathic products, for example, simply by holding a sincere belief that these products “have demonstrated benefits for patients, have minimal risks, and the patient is making an informed choice”. This belief would not accord with reality, but merely holding it appears to be sufficient to circumvent this code.

To paraphrase the songwriter Tim Minchin, “what do you call Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) that have demonstrated benefits for patients? Medicine”

4. Are there any other comments you would like the Council to consider?

Yes.

We would like to see the Pharmacy Council produce a set of clear rules for when a product can be deemed to be ineffective; a clear, transparent process outlined for dealing with complaints against pharmacies selling products that are not evidence based; and clear penalties for pharmacies that are found to be in breach of these guidelines. The new code does not appear to allow for this to happen, and instead we suspect that it is unlikely that the Pharmacy Council will end up using this new code to censure a pharmacy for selling ineffective health products.

We would be interested to find out, given the many apparent breaches of the current code of ethics where pharmacies are selling CAM without credible evidence of efficacy, how often pharmacies have been found by the Pharmacy Council to be in breach of the code, and what action was taken in each case.

We would also like to see the Pharmacy Council introduce a way to effectively measure whether pharmacies are following the code of ethics – some method of proactively auditing the compliance of pharmacies. These checks would have to be incognito, to ensure that an accurate measure is taken of how pharmacies are promoting CAM to patients.

Submission on the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Bill

Fluoridation

The NZ Skeptics believe that the available scientific evidence shows community water fluoridation to be both a safe and effective measure for reducing incidence of tooth decay. What we see in the behaviour and tactics of the anti-fluoridation movement in New Zealand echoes similar behaviour we see from other ideologically anti-science groups, such as the anti-vaccination movement. This includes “cherry picking” of only the evidence that supports their position while ignoring any data to the contrary, misrepresenting scientific studies, and flouting New Zealand regulations in order to misinform the public.

 

We believe that the anti fluoridation movement has come out against this bill not because they believe that local councils are better able to make healthcare decisions for the public, but because it is easier for them to influence and subvert these decisions when they are made at a local council level – as we have seen them do in the past.

The Proposal

The NZ Skeptics support the proposed change of moving the decision to fluoridate water supplies away from local councils, and transferring it to District Health Boards

As water fluoridation is a public health measure, we believe that DHBs will be better suited to make an informed decision than local councils are. DHBs have staff on hand who are proficient in reading and analysing scientific studies, and they also monitor the health of their district’s residents. These two skills will allow DHB staff to advise the Board members of each DHB as to whether fluoridation is an appropriate measure.

Other agencies

We would like to note that if a change is made to move the decision making process to central government rather than to DHBs, we would be supportive of this move.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to be able to give our opinion on the proposed change to this important health measure.

Submission on The Regulation of Natural Health Products consultation

christin-hume-0MoF-Fe0w0A-unsplash

 

Below is the NZ Skeptics’ submission on the recent Regulation of Natural Health Products consultation, run by the Ministry of Health. The consultation is related to the Natural Health and Supplementary Products bill, which is likely to become a new piece of New Zealand legislation in the near future. Our submission is a point by point response to the questions raised by the consultation document, which can be found, along with supporting documents, at:

http://www.health.govt.nz/publication/regulation-natural-health-products-consultation

 

The Regulation of Natural Health Products

 

Ingredients

 

1. Are there other criteria that the Committee should consider when adding a substance to the permitted substances list?

Yes. Possible interactions with both prescription pharmaceuticals and other natural health products should be considered when adding a substance to the permitted substances list.

A history of safety issues and patterns of historical misuse of a substance should also be considered. This history should be gathered from reliable sources located globally, not just in New Zealand.

 

2. Of the criteria proposed, are there any that you think should not be considered by the Committee when adding a substance to the permitted substances list?

No. All of the proposed criteria appear to be important for ensuring the safety of substances, and we hope that they all become part of the final criteria used to evaluate substances.

 

3. Should the criteria to be considered by the Committee be weighted or ranked in some way?

Yes. Concern for safety is paramount, so any safety assessment should hold increased weight.

 

4. Do you agree that full formulation details of proprietary ingredients should be disclosed?

Yes. We wholeheartedly agree that full formulation details should always be disclosed to both the Authority and consumers. The safety of consumers relies on all ingredients and amounts being known, and matters of consumer safety should always trump those of commercial interest. We also believe that for consumers to be able to make informed choices about their healthcare, they have a right to know the ingredients of any healthcare product they are taking.

 

5. Are there substances that could be added to or should be removed from the draft permitted substances list?

Yes. Although we did not have the resources to check through the entire list of draft permitted substances, we were very surprised at how long the list was. Ideally we would like to see all substances, outside of those with a proven therapeutic benefit, having to go through a submission process which involves the paying of a fee, rather than automatically being added at no cost. This ensures that due diligence is performed on all substances.

Health benefit claims

 

6. Are the following factors the right ones to consider when deciding if claims may be made about named conditions:

  • non-serious
  • self-limiting
  • suitable for self-management
  • suitable for self-diagnosis
  • likely to cause serious consequences without health practitioner consultation?

Yes. These are a good minimum set of conditions. No claims should be made for conditions that do not take into consideration all of these factors. These factors would benefit from being turned into a more formal, precise set of rules, to ensure they are consistently applied to all potential allowed conditions.

 

7. Should other factors be considered?

Yes. We believe that conditions should only be added to the allowed list if it has been found by the Authority that at least one natural health product has been shown to be effective in treating the condition. This would go some way towards showing a plausibility for other natural health products also having the potential to have a positive effect on the condition.

 

8. Should the factors be weighted or ranked in some way?

Yes. The factors that have a more direct effect on consumer health risks should be ranked higher, e.g. the seriousness of the condition.

 

9. Are there conditions you think should be added to or removed from the draft list of conditions about which health claims may be made?

Yes. There are several items on the list of conditions that are prefixed or suffixed with “unspecified”, such as “bacterial infection unspecified” and “allergy, unspecified”. We wonder if some of these definitions are too broad, and should either be removed or replaced with specific conditions.

We recommend that time is spent on ensuring this list is acceptable to a range of health professionals (accredited medical science health professionals, rather than alternative therapy professionals) and any relevant professional bodies (again we would prefer to see no alternative therapy professional bodies involved, given their conflict of interest).

We would also like to see an explicit provision for the regulations about health claims to include any claims made within the name of a natural health product. We are concerned that some products currently have names which make health claims, including naming specific medical conditions in the product name. Examples of products sold in New Zealand with this issue are:

Evidence

Relevance and representativeness of evidence

 

10. Are there other criteria that should be included, or should any of the listed criteria be excluded?

Yes. We think that it is not enough for evidence to “not conflict with a wider body of evidence”. It would be better to have the reverse of this criteria, that evidence should “agree with a wider body of evidence”. This strengthens the criteria to ensure that a single study would not be considered sufficient evidence, in cases where there has been a lack of research conducted on a product’s efficacy.

Traditional evidence

 

11. Are these appropriate sources of traditional evidence?

No. Ideally, there should be no mention of historical use when it comes to the marketing of natural health products and no claims should be able to be made about a product on the basis of this traditional evidence. Our understanding is that historical use does not have a good track record when it comes to proving either that a product is able to treat a medical condition, or that the product is safe. The vast majority of natural health products with evidence of historical use to treat a condition have either a) not been proven to actually treat the condition or b) been positively shown to not treat the condition.

At least some consumers are likely to be led to believe that evidence of historical use is evidence of efficacy. If this information is allowed to be used in any way for making health claims about a product, those consumers will be misled into thinking that the product is able to treat a health condition. This should be enough of a reason to ensure that historical use is not allowed to be used as evidence for a natural health product.

It is telling that the section on traditional evidence in the guidelines is so much shorter than the section on scientific evidence. The scientific method is a well tested way of testing whether claims are true or not, and as such it is necessarily strict about how scientific tests are conducted and what can be considered an acceptable level of evidence. Traditional evidence, on the other hand, is not encumbered by a requirement to prove that its claims are true – merely that its claims are old. Accepting traditional evidence, in any form, is enacting a great disservice to New Zealanders, who rely on the government to ensure they are protected from ineffective or dangerous treatments.

If historical use will be allowed as evidence, there are some issues that we have with the guidelines.

We do not believe that an individual should be taken on authority when making claims about whether there is evidence of traditional use for a treatment. Written documented evidence of historical use should be a bare minimum accepted, and this should be evaluated critically before being accepted. No matter what the position of an individual in a culture, their claims should be subjected to scrutiny – arguments from authority should not be accepted.

We are also worried about the pharmacopoeia that have been listed. We believe that these should not be taken on face value as evidence of traditional use, and that external validation of their claims must be required. Obviously, for any volume first published before the traditional use time period, this would be sufficient evidence that the treatments listed within the volume fit the criteria of traditional use. However, we are concerned that some of these pharmacopoeia may contain treatments that have only relatively recently been used.

In fact, any single source that claims historic use of a natural health product should not be taken at face value. Multiple independent forms of evidence should be required before it is accepted that a product has a long history of use.

 

12. Are there other sources of traditional evidence that should be accepted?

No. We are concerned that the existing sources of traditional evidence are already too broad, and that the average consumer will give traditional use claims more weight than they merit. Adding more sources would only exacerbate this problem.

 

13. Do you think 75 years is an appropriate minimum period of use for something to be considered to be traditionally used?

No. We consider that use should only be considered as traditional if it pre-dates the spread of the scientific method in medicine. A useful yardstick for this date is the publication of An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine by Claude Bernard in 1865. At the very least, we believe that a fixed date should be chosen for deciding if something has been traditionally used, to simplify management of which treatment types are considered to qualify or not qualify. If a time period is used (e.g. 75 years), the Authority will need to track when treatments change from not qualifying as being traditionally used to qualifying. Given the large number of natural health products available, this could be burdensome task.

Scientific evidence

 

14. Are there other factors we should consider when determining if a type of study is acceptable?

Yes. The guidelines suggest linking the level of study considered acceptable as evidence with the risk of using a product. We do not consider this to be a sensible position to take. The level of evidence required should not be linked to the risk of taking the product, but only to the level of claims being made about the product. The more specific and definite the medical claims, the higher the level of evidence that should be supplied. Whether the product is low or high risk, however, should not influence the level of evidence deemed acceptable.

We consider that peer review is an absolute minimum for deciding that a type of study is acceptable. Allowance will have to be made for the varying quality of peer reviewed journals, especially given the proliferation of unscrupulous journals in recent years that have been known to compromise on peer review. A good overview of this issue can be read at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60.full

 

15. Are the types of studies that are acceptable clear?

No. It is not clear that all the types of studies listed have a requirement that they are peer reviewed. We believe that this requirement is important and should be explicitly mentioned.

 

16. Should other types of studies be considered acceptable?

No. Some of the existing list of types of studies considered acceptable are already at what appears to be a lower standard than would be acceptable to MedSafe or the Advertising Standards Authority as evidence of efficacy. Any further adding of acceptable types of studies would only risk weakening this consumer safeguard.

Summary of evidence

 

17. Are the evidence guidelines clear?

No. The Draft Guidelines for Natural Health Products Evidence Requirements document contains several worrying details.

There is a statement that “Scientific evidence does not take precedence over traditional evidence”, in the General requirements for evidence section of the guidelines. We are concerned that it is not clear from the document what reasoning has been used to discern that traditional and scientific evidence are equal in this way.

It is our understanding that science has made great strides in providing us all with affordable, effective healthcare, whereas most traditional treatments have not been adopted by modern medicine precisely because they have not been shown to be effective. To equate the two forms of evidence is to totally ignore the fact that the scientific method has proven itself time and time again, and has earned the right to be considered a more trustworthy way of proving a claim than has the simple idea that something has been used for a long time. Many treatments that have a long history of use are now known to be dangerous, such as bloodletting and purging.

Given that evidence of traditional use is, in effect, evidence that a treatment was developed when we were a lot more ignorant that we are now about medicine and healthcare, we strongly resist the idea that the two should be given equal footing.

This principle of not accepting scientific evidence over traditional evidence leads to the unfortunate statement later in the guidelines that “Traditional claims that have been scientifically proven not to be correct can still be made”. We believe that this is unacceptable, and that if there is good quality positive scientific evidence to show that a claim is false, that claim should not be allowed to be made at all – including in the context of historical use.

We believe that all evidence should be available in English. The guidelines state that “The evidence that you hold to support your claim must be in English, or you must be able to provide a verified English translation if requested by the Authority.“ We believe that it is important to allow consumers to be adequately informed, and as such an English version of any evidence held should always be made available in an easily accessible format.

We would like to see provision made for consumers to have access to the full text of any studies cited in support of a health benefit claim. It would be disappointing to have natural health companies making claims that cannot be readily verified because the studies cited are locked behind a paywall and out of reach of consumers due to the cost involved. Given how often we have seen natural health companies claim that a study supports their position, where a subsequent reading of the text has shown that the company has either accidentally or deliberately misconstrued the results of the study, we feel that making it easy for consumers to verify a given summary of a scientific text would be beneficial.

The list of health benefit claims given in the guideline are inclusive, which is laudable. The five claims given are:

  • maintenance or promotion of health or wellness
  • nutritional support
  • vitamin or mineral supplementation
  • affecting or maintaining the structure or function of the body
  • relief of symptoms.

Given these definitions, we hope that the new regulations will cover the types of claims that are currently exempted by TAPS Guideline 13, such as:

  • Helps smooth digestion
  • Aids the digestive process
  • Supports normal digestion
  • A natural approach for digestion

We believe that these claims are all likely to mislead consumers into thinking that a product is effective for a given health condition, and as such the new regulations should require evidence for these claims.

For products that come under the purview of the new regulations, we would like to see provision to ensure that companies don’t deliberately use vague claims to avoid having to supply supporting evidence. For example, non-specific claims about “the immune system” or “mental wellbeing” should not be allowed.

 

18. Are there other evidence-related topics that should be included in these guidelines?

No.

Manufacturing

The Code of Manufacturing Practice

 

19. Do you agree with the proposed Code of Manufacturing Practice?

No. We have problems with the general thrust of the Code, as it is summarised in the consultation document.

We see no reason for there to be any gap between the legislation and the Code of Manufacturing Practice coming into force. We hope and assume that most natural health product manufacturers are already following a code of manufacturing practice that is closely aligned with the proposed new Code, and so meeting the requirements of this Code should be a quick and simple task.

We also strongly disagree with the principle that the manufacturing regulation of natural health products should be proportionate to the risks of their use. We feel that manufacturing risks are independent of the risk of a product’s use, as these risks come from outside of the intended use of a product. For example, contamination of a product is an equally risk-laden issue whether the product itself is considered low risk or high risk .

Manufacturing exemptions

 

20. How frequently should audits be required? Should this differ for different levels of risk?

We agree that it is acceptable for audit frequency to depend on risk. We think that the risk level should be informed by such measurements as the history of a manufacturer’s prior infringements and the compliance history of the product with other manufacturers.

We do not agree that there should provision for any manufacturer to be exempt from auditing.

 

21. Do you think there should be exemptions from manufacturing licensing?

No. If anything, small volume manufacturers of natural health products have a greater potential to create products that carry risk. All consumers deserve the same protection, whether they are purchasing a product from a high volume manufacturer or a small scale manufacturer.

Fees

 

22. Are these the right things for the Authority to charge for? Are there other things for which the Authority should charge?

We are not concerned with the services that the Authority will charge for.

 

23. Are the charges structured appropriately?

We are not concerned with the structure of the charges.

 

24. Do you have any comment on the proposal that notification be for a July–June financial year, and/or the proposals to handle the transition period?

No.

 

25. Do you have any comment on the level of the charges?

Yes. Although we have no specific recommendations for fees, we believe that overall the annual amount collected in fees should be sufficient to fund a robust system of proactive regulation. These fees should allow for:

  • Frequent manufacturing audits
  • Random manufacturing spot checks
  • Independent product checks to ensure the accuracy of both the ingredient list and listed dosages
  • Frequent evidence checks for evidence supplied in product notifications
  • The use of qualified scientists in relevant fields to evaluate supplied scientific evidence

Ideally, we would prefer to see the product registration system as an approvals based system rather than a notification system. We think that an enforced check of all product registrations should be performed, and that the natural health products industry should bear the cost of this process via product registration fees.

We would like to see the Authority make provision for a robust, proactive, transparent complaints procedure. Ideally this procedure would involve the proper consideration of all complaints laid before it, rather than a cherry picking of only those complaints deemed to be the worst offences. We would also like to see this procedure made as transparent as possible, with the complainant kept informed at all stages of a complaint’s processing, and information on complaints and their outcomes made public on a website. The website should also allow for online complaint filing, and have clear instructions on how to make a complaint and what kinds of issues merit a complaint.

 

26. Do you have any comment on the assumptions around volumes each year? Would you expect higher volumes in the first year?

No.

 

27. How many products do you anticipate notifying initially, and in the next two to three years?

No, we have no expectation around this.

 

28. Do you agree that manufacturers are best placed to commission any quality control activities, such as audit, that might be required by the Code of Manufacturing Practice?

No. We consider that allowing product manufacturers to self audit is taking an unacceptable risk. Natural product manufacturers should not be trusted to be able to effectively police themselves, especially given the global track record for natural products failing to conform to their stated ingredients lists:

 

29. Are there additional issues relating to fees and charges that you would like us to consider?

No.

Very low-volume products

 

30. Do you see a case for reducing fees for very low-volume products?

No. Fees should be reduced in circumstances where it can be shown that associated costs are lowered. However, we do not see how a low-volume product would entail a lower cost to the Authority in managing the product registration, and so we do not believe that these products should qualify for reduced fees.

 

31. How would you define very low-volume products?

We believe that any natural health product, even one that is custom made for a consumer with a volume of only a single unit, should be regulated. Therefore, although we have no recommendation of an upper limit for what is considered low-volume, our lower limit would be 1.

 

32. Do you have any suggestions for the design of any provisions, including:

  • limits on the number of products that any notifier can have fee exemptions for
  • administrative efficiency
  • any other issues that might be associated with low-volume products?

 

No.

Labelling

 

33. Do you agree that labels should meet the proposed presentation requirements?

Yes. There should be a procedure in place to ensure all labels meet the requirements before a product can be sold, and a process for consumers to report products that fail to meet the labelling standards.

 

34. Are the proposed minimum labelling requirements the right ones?

Yes. The labelling requirements are well thought out, and will help to protect consumers through allowing them to be sufficiently informed about the product.

 

35. Should product labels include unique identifiers?

Yes. Unique identifiers should be on all labels, and there should be provision for this identifier to be searchable in an online product database of all registered natural health products.

Given the proliferation of internet enabled smartphones, we would like to see this process made as simple as possible by the inclusion of a QR code on labels as an added unique identifier. This code, when scanned by the consumer’s smartphone camera, would open the product registration webpage in a browser on the consumer’s phone. The technology to allow this to happen is already freely available, so the cost to add this feature would be minimal.

The unique identifier section of a label could look like this example:

NHP QR Code

 

36. Is there any other information that should be included, or should any of the listed information be excluded?

Yes. We believe that intended purpose of the product should only be allowed to be included on the label if there is scientific evidence to underpin the claim. We do not consider historical evidence alone to be sufficient to warrant the inclusion of a claim that the product is able to treat any medical condition.

If evidence of historical use is allowed to be included on product labels, we believe that it should be accompanied by a disclaimer which explains that the claim does not constitute evidence of efficacy. The disclaimer could take the form of:

Traditionally used for x. This is not evidence that this product is able to treat any medical condition, only that it was believed to do so in the past.

Notification

 

37. Is there information that you think should be included in, or excluded from the notification process?

Yes. We think that, along with the summary of evidence, a summary of risk should be included. Manufacturers should be expected to have researched any risks associated both with each active ingredient and with the formula of ingredients. Any adverse effects recorded in medical journals or databases from around the world should be summarised and included in the report, along with links to the source data.

 

38. What information that we are proposing be notified do you think should not be made publicly available and why?

None. We believe that full transparency is important to allow consumers to make an informed choice about their healthcare.

 

39. Should products that sell in less than a certain quantity per year be exempt from notification?

No. We believe that any exemption to notification is a risk. If exemptions to notification are to be allowed, this should be related to risk. We do not consider the quantity sold to be a reliable indicator of reduced risk to the consumer.

 

40. Should products for which the annual sales amount is less than a certain figure per year be exempt from notification?

No. Similarly to question 39, We do not consider the annual sales amount to be a reliable indicator of reduced risk to the consumer.

 

41. Should exemptions on other grounds be considered?

No. We think that the exemptions listed in the consultation document, for one-off products and homeopathic products, will both increase the risk to consumers. The only way to ensure that these products are safe is to subject them to the same regulations as other natural health products.

The three main risks with natural health products, as defined in an overview at the beginning of the consultation document, are that:

  1. The ingredients in the product could be unsafe.
  2. Consumers may delay seeking conventional medical treatment.
  3. Products could be manufactured in an unsafe way.

We consider all of these risks to apply to both homeopathy and one-off products, as much as they do to other natural health products.

For example, with homeopathy, the only way to ensure that an active ingredient has been diluted to the point that it is safe, and that there no contaminants due to unsafe manufacturing, is to test the product. An easy way to ensure the safety of homeopathic products is to not exempt it from the regulations. Failing that, there should be provision that exempted products carry a warning that they are not covered by the regulations. This warning could look like:

This health product has been exempted from regulation by the Natural Health Products framework. Any health claims made by this product have not been vetted in any way.

We are concerned that if homeopathic and other exempt products are not covered by the new regulations, consumers will assume that they are covered and will not notice the lack of regulatory labelling on these products. As such, the warning above would need to be made obvious on the packaging.

Homeopathy is well known as a natural health product that has caused consumers to delay medical treatment. A website called What’s the Harm has documented some of these cases from around the world at http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

 

42. To be fair to all product notifiers, how should requests for exemptions be verified to ensure they actually qualify?

We believe that exemptions are anathema to the idea of ensuring consumer safety. We hope that no ad hoc exemptions would be accepted, as they would allow a product to bypass this scheme – a scheme which is rightly designed to protect consumers.

Recognised authorities

 

43. Are there any additional purposes for which you think the Authority should also consider recognising other authorities?

Yes. We would be happy for other authorities to be recognised for several purposes, as long as those authorities can be shown to be both impartial and proficient. The purposes we think are suitable are:

  • Analysis of any health claims being made
  • Testing of product ingredients
  • Manufacturing spot checks

 

44. Are there any purposes for which you think the Authority should not consider recognising other authorities?

No.

 

45. What other authorities do you think the Authority should recognise and for what purpose?

As we have said previously in this submission, we believe that product registration should be an approvals rather than a notification system. We think that MedSafe would potentially be a proficient authority for tasks such as analysing the scientific evidence for product approvals.

Determining if your product is a permitted natural health product

 

46. Does the flow chart to determine if your product is a permitted natural health product make sense to you?

Yes. We wonder if an interactive version of this flow chart would be a useful addition to a Natural Health Product website that we presume will be created – maybe a list of questions with Yes/No buttons to answer them.

 

47. Are there other considerations that we should take into account?

No.

Other Issues

We hope to see the Natural Health Products website become a useful resource for finding information about all information useful to consumers, such as registered products (including full ingredients, the evidence summary, etc), deregistered products, permitted substances, allowed conditions, consumer complaints and manufacturer fines. To that end, we would like to see that an API is placed in front of this data to allow easy access, in accordance with the government’s commitment to Open Data. We also hope to see the website make use of modern technologies such as responsive design and Microdata, along with extensive hyperlinking, to make the site intuitive and easy to navigate on handheld devices as well as full sized computer screens.

We thank the Ministry of Health for giving us the opportunity to submit our thoughts on this new, important piece of legislation. We hope that our ideas are helpful in finalising the specifics of the bill and associated guidelines, and we would be keen to engage further with the Ministry on this topic in any way that we can help.

Palm Reading claims – our response

PalmWe were asked today to comment on an article on Stuff about palm reading, and how seeing the letter M on your non-dominant hand is a sign of future success. Luckily, despite it being Christmas Eve, our new Media Spokesperson (and Secretary) Craig Shearer was able to put together a solid response on short notice! Here’s the response in full:

 


People are good at seeing patterns in everyday life, even when no actual pattern exists. Suggesting a pattern to somebody will greatly improve the chances of them seeing it, even if it’s just one of many equally valid interpretations of what they are looking at. Think about when you see a pattern in the clouds. You can make somebody else see it much more easily if you tell them what they are looking at – a dog or a dragon, for example.

The creases on people’s palms have some connection to their development embryonically – and there are certain instances where genetic diseases can correlate with particular patterns of creases. However, it’s drawing a very long bow to suggest that the pattern of creases on a person’s palms would have any predictive effect on their life “success” – however success may be measured.

Palm readers work in a similar manner to psychics and clairvoyants – usually picking up on little cues from a personal reading that gives the person the answers they’re expecting to hear. In Jon’s case, however, this statement relating to all people with the letter M on their non-dominant hand appears to be more akin to astrology. He has offered some generically positive predictions that are bound to make anyone feel good.

The real test for these types of claims would be to see whether a particular pattern can be repeatedly and reliably matched up with a particular life outcome, without the palm reader knowing who the subjects are.

This article has an interactive survey asking readers whether they have a distinctive M pattern on their hands. At the time the NZ Skeptics were asked to comment on the article, of those surveyed a whopping 83% can see the M. This is a pretty clear demonstration of the suggestive nature of this type of fortune telling. A mixture of an identifying feature that appears to fit most people, along with a set of predictions that make people feel good, will usually hit the mark for many and make them feel positive about the accuracy of a reading.

One potentially dangerous aspect to this is that it encourages thinking that your life’s outcome is predetermined – that your life is in the hands of your genetics or fate. Even if most people find an “M” on their non-dominant hand, and are led to believe that they will have a successful future, what of those that can’t see the “M” who have a belief in palm reading? Will they walk away from this believing that their life going forward will not be successful?

While the patterns on your palms may well be fascinating, it pays to be skeptical of claims that don’t have solid evidence of their worth, particularly when someone is asking for money in return for their service.

Herman Petrick’s Ghost-busting Claims

Herman PetrickThe Taranaki Daily News published an article about Herman Petrick, who claims to be able to help people by removing harmful negative energy. The author of the article, Taryn Utiger, asked the NZ Skeptics to respond to five questions about Herman’s claims. Here are our responses in full:

  1. Is there any scientific proof that negative energy exists or does not exist?

There’s no evidence that the type of negative spiritual energy Herman talks about exists, and no scientific basis for the concept of these energies. Although it can never be positively proven that this kind of energy doesn’t exist, every attempt so far to prove that it does exist has failed and this lack of evidence suggests that it’s unlikely there is any such a thing as spiritual energy.

Herman’s website doesn’t appear to have any evidence to back up his claims, just many assertions about negative energy and how he can help you to clear this energy for a price.

 

  1. Why should people be careful when dealing with people who claim to have special powers or skills?

There are many potential risks when dealing with people who claim to have a connection to, or understanding of, other-worldly powers or energies.

The most immediate concern is that people are often asked to pay money to the practitioner, and it’s generally not a good idea to pay for any service that doesn’t have a good evidence base. In Herman’s case, he states that he’s charging between $50 and $250 for a service where he has no proof that it does anything at all.

Some supernatural practitioners have also been known to take large sums of money from vulnerable people – using tactics such as gaining their trust or telling the unwary person that their money needs “cleansing”. Although this is relatively rare, there are several cases in New Zealand of this happening, along with many more around the world – and the effects can be devastating.

Beyond monetary issues, belief in pseudoscientific ideas such as those of spirit energies, ghosts and other supernatural entities and powers can cause people to make bad life decisions. People have been known to refuse proper medical care, make harmful financial choices and act on bad work or relationship advice.

Often the people who are targeted by those claiming to be able to use special powers are the most vulnerable in society. In Herman’s case, it is worrying to see that a lot of the cases he purports to be able to treat may be attributable to mental health issues, and there are even claims on his website that he can treat “any mental illness” as these are supposedly signs of “negative attachments”.

 

  1. What would your advice be to anyone who considers using services like these?

If you’re considering employing the services of someone who claims to have supernatural abilities, ask for evidence that the claims they make about their abilities are true. Testimonials should not be considered as sufficient evidence, as clients are often mistaken about whether something works or not.

The level of evidence should be proportional to the strength of the claims being made. If someone is claiming something that sounds unlikely to be true or doesn’t line up with what science has taught us about the world we live in, make sure you set a very high bar for the quality of evidence you are willing to accept from them as proof of their claims.

If you want to check the internet for more information, be aware that all sorts of claims are made on websites of varying quality. Wikipedia is a good place to start, and the “See also” and “External links” sections usually contain links to more good quality information on a topic. If the claim is related to your health (including mental health), talk to your GP about what they think.

If you decide to take the plunge and visit someone claiming they can help you via supernatural means, take a friend along with you who you trust not to let you spend money on something that’s not worth it. Especially if the issue you are seeking help with is a very emotional one for you, it’s a good idea to have someone there that will help to ensure you don’t make any rash decisions.

 

  1. Why do you believe people claim to have these powers?

It’s hard to guess the motivations and beliefs of people who make these kinds of claims, but they seem to fall into two broad categories.

Firstly, there are the people who are, at some level, aware that they are not in possession of the powers they claim to have. These people may have ways of justifying what they do, such as that they are bringing solace to grieving people or that if they weren’t helping this person, someone less scrupulous would be doing it.

Secondly, others seem to have never taken the time to critically check out their claims. They truly believe that they have special abilities, and positive feedback from their clients helps to bolster this belief (of course, there are many reasons why a client may give positive feedback despite the service they’ve received not actually making a difference). Confirmation bias can help people to remember the positive seeming results they see when offering their services, but forget the times that their powers didn’t seem to work. Along with other biases that our brains use to make sense of the world, someone claiming supernatural powers can easily end up with the mistaken belief that their powers are real.

 

  1. Is there anything you would like to add?

If Herman is serious about his claims, the NZ Skeptics would be keen to help him to test his abilities under controlled conditions. It is important that he takes the time to back up the claims that he is making. The alternative, that he continues to charge people money for a service that he can’t prove is real, would be disappointing to say the least.

NZ Skeptics announce 2015 Awards

The Pharmacy Council has been awarded the 2015 Bent Spoon Award from the NZ Skeptics for proposing a change to their Code of Ethics that would allow the sale of healthcare products that have not been shown to work.

The Pharmacy Council is responsible under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act for setting standards of ethical conduct for pharmacists in New Zealand.

Section 6.9 of their 2011 Code of Ethics states that pharmacists can only supply or promote products where there is no reason to doubt their quality or safety, and when there is credible evidence of efficacy.

Groups such as the NZ Skeptics and the Society for Science Based Healthcare have identified pharmacies selling unproven “remedies” such as homeopathy, and put pressure on the Pharmacy Council to enforce their Code of Ethics.

In response, in August 2015 the Pharmacy Council proposed to change the wording of their code.

This proposed change would allow the sale of “complementary therapies” that are not supported by credible evidence of efficacy.

Chair of the NZ Skeptics, Mark Honeychurch, said:

It’s disappointing that the Pharmacy Council would even consider that weakening their Code of Ethics is a good solution to the problem they have of non-compliant pharmacists.

Surely it makes more sense to educate pharmacists about what is and isn’t ethical to sell, and for the Council to be more effective in policing this section of the code – rather than to change their code to allow unethical behaviour.

Each year the NZ Skeptics announces the Bent Spoon Award for the New Zealand organisation which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking on a science-related issue.

A close runner-up for the Bent Spoon award was TV3’s 3D current events show, with their episode “Cause or Coincidence?” which suggested that the Gardasil vaccine was to blame for two unexplained deaths of New Zealand girls, along with others who have suffered from illnesses after receiving the vaccination.

In addition to the Bent Spoon, the NZ Skeptics’ Bravo Awards praise a number of attempts to encourage critical thinking over the past year.

This year’s winners are:

  • Rosanna Price (Fairfax Media) for her coverage in Stuff of All Black Waisake Naholo’s “miracle” natural cure for a fractured leg bone.
  • Simon Mitchell (University of Auckland) for his very strong rebuttal of the claims made in an NZ Herald article of 12 September, 2015 entitled: “Hope is in the air: Hyperbaric chambers – the real deal or a placebo?”
  • Adam Smith (Massey University) for his article in the NZ Herald countering the claims made in TV3’s 3D episode “Cause or Coincidence?”
  • Ben Albert (University of Auckland) for his effort in writing an excellent submission to the Pharmacy Council, and his rallying of healthcare professionals to put together a letter to the editor of the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Also this year, the Denis Dutton award for New Zealand Skeptic of the Year was given to Daniel Ryan for his work as President of Making Sense of Fluoride, as well as for his skeptical activism efforts for the Society for Science Based Healthcare and his commitment to helping the NZ Skeptics Society.

The awards were conferred at the NZ Skeptics Conference, held in Christchurch from the 20th to 22nd of November 2015.

NZ Skeptics Awards: http://skeptics.nz/awards
NZ Skeptics Conference: http://conference.skeptics.nz