Hokum Locum

Dioxin “Poisoning” or Hormesis in action?

It will be interesting to see how the government handles the latest health scare which is being helped along by the usual sensationalist media reporting. How about this example: “The men who made the poisons that blighted a New Plymouth community….” (Sunday Star Times, 12 September 2004).

There are many dioxins and the most toxic is considered to be TCDD, a contaminant found during the manufacture of the herbicide 2,4,5-T but also occurring naturally as a result of combustion, forest fires and smoking. Dioxin has been isolated from soot in prehistoric caves. Dioxin is found in body fat (lipid) and has a half life of around 7-10 years, meaning that a total body load diminishes by half during each such interval. The national average body level of TCDD is 3.5 picograms per gram of lipid. A picogram is one trillionth of a gram (ie. 1 x 10-12 grams, or if you like a lot of noughts: 0.000000000001 g). The mean TCDD level in residents of Paritutu was 10.8 picograms per gram of lipid with a range of 1.3-33.3. To date, there is no evidence of increased disease rates in the studied population. To put it bluntly, the Paritutu residents have 3-10 times the infinitesimal amount found in the general population, still well within international limits. I would like to see a similar study examining the levels of dioxin and mercury downwind from the local crematorium!

Hormesis is an effect where small doses of a toxic substance seem to promote health. A good example is alcohol, as was the Victorian habit of consuming small doses of arsenic and strychnine as a “tonic”. Rather than concentrating on looking at ill-health, researchers should be examining whether Paritutu residents are in fact healthier than most other New Zealanders.

Nevertheless, research will be ongoing and although not given to making predictions I offer the following observations:

  1. Residents will claim that every possible health problem they have ever had was caused by dioxin exposure.
  2. Residents will demand compensation in accordance with Welch’s Law (Claims expand to take up the amount of compensation available).
  3. Scientific evidence will be distorted and misinterpreted to justify any possible viewpoint.
  4. The “Greens” will claim that any amount of dioxin is “unsafe” and at some stage the phrase “cover up” will be used.

A former manager of the Paritutu chemical plant is quoted as saying that he worked there for 30 years and is still in perfect health at 85 years of age. Hormesis in action surely?

More Healthy Additives?

Britain is in the grip of such a serious depression that prescriptions for the anti-depressant “Prozac” (fluoxetine) have risen from nine million to 24 million per year. I read this as I sipped my ale in the Pint and Prozac, a quaint canal-side pub which I discovered while on my recent overseas trip to research taro cultivation by the gay and lesbian community (funded by a Community Education Grant – thanks Steve!).

Prozac is finding its way into ground water and hence into supplies of drinking water.

It is clear that I have been on the right track in calling for Ritalin (methyphenidate – a stimulant) to be added to the water supply as a Public Health measure. This combination of stimulant and antidepressant will surely lead to a euphoric and happy population. I am however concerned about problems of dosage as the Authorities have claimed that the Prozac is so “watered down” that it is unlikely to pose a health risk, except to those who believe in homeopathy.<br> Christchurch Press, 10 August

Touting for Business – “Chiropractic Kidz Week”

What better way to build up business than to convince parents and children of the need for regular assessment and treatment of “subluxations”, the core tenet of chiropractic pseudoscience. It is a matter of concern that “chiropractic kidz week” is a nationwide programme aimed at those “parents or caregivers or the child themselves (who) are not aware of a spinal problem.”

The reason such people are “unaware” is because they do not have any such “spinal problem”, which exists only in the self-deluded imagination of the chiropractor. Chiropractors interpret minor postural variations as signs of “disease” and requiring treatment. I wonder if any chiropractor has ever diagnosed a “perfect spine” unless it was achieved at the expense of 60 “treatments”. It is a national disgrace that this pseudo-science is funded by ACC and chiropractors should not be allowed to either take or bill the Health Service for x-rays.

Please keep an eye out for this scam next year and if possible get as many members as possible to take their children for a free assessment and report back to me what happens. Some tape recordings would be useful. A woman recently wrote to the paper and took Frank Haden to task for criticising alternative medicine. She went on to claim that chiropractic manipulations had cured her of migraine, cured her child’s squint and cured another child’s gait abnormality!

With such gullible beliefs out in the community it is no wonder that chiropractors continue to work their rich scams.
Blenheim Sun, 11 August
Letter to Editor, Sunday Star Times, 26 September

Anyone for Tennis?

A millionaire property owner has been getting $600 per week from ACC since 1974, despite earning $2400 per week from his investment portfolio. In a bizarre example of Welch’s Law, his claim was accepted under medical misadventure for psychological damage caused by prescription medicines, in this case benzodiazepines (Valium). His disability is “psychological” and prevents him from working at all but readers will be thrilled to know that the poor fellow is able to play tennis three days a week and in his own words “it’s better to have a peaceful life”. ACC have done a great service to tennis as the claimant is now in the top third of senior players in Auckland. Employers and taxpayers alike will be thrilled to know that their ACC levies are being put to such good use. Sunday Star Times, 26 September

In Brief

  • Despite local doctors showering sick notes like confetti, teachers at Hamilton’s Fraser High School failed in their bid for compensation from MAF for “illness” caused by the spray used to eradicate the Asian gypsy moth. Sorry people, no money for mass hysteria. Better to track down the millionaire’s doctor and go for PTSD caused by unruly pupils. (Dominion Post, 30 September)
  • In France the Académie de Médecine has upset homeopaths by issuing a damning report challenging the continued funding of homeopathy through the national health service. (Dominion Post, 9 June).
  • Acupuncture is ineffective for the treatment of tennis elbow. Hardly surprising given that “good evidence indicates that acupuncture does not work.” (Bandolier 126 Vol 11, Issue 8, www.bandolier.com).
  • Remember the Aoraki Polytechnic and their stupid proposal to run a degree course in naturopathy? They are at it again. They got $8165 community education funding for the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths’ Conference. (Sunday Star Times, 3 October).
  • For most of October I will be touring northern India by motorcycle and I intend filming and recording as much as possible. I have been asked by Paul Trotman to find him a “nose kettle”. If you want to know what that is you will just have to come to next year’s conference!

John Welch lives in Picton and is a retired RNZAF medical officer.

I Feel Sorry For Him

A French test of a therapeutic touch practitioner generates sympathy, but no positive results

We have recently received a message from OZ. Not transtasman Big Brother, but the cousins in France. OZ stands for Observatoire Zététique, a group of skeptical investigators (Zetetic is much the same as skeptic, as every Victorian schoolboy knew. The Greeks had not just one word for it, but two).

The message is an English translation of their report on a test of a Therapeutic Touch (TT) practitioner. This person, referred to as “Mr Z” had approached OZ with some keenness to be tested, and many discussions took place, not only on a detailed protocol for the tests, but about Mr Z’s philosophy and approach to his vocation.

OZ summarise Mr Z’s practice thus:

“[It] depends largely on subjective validation parameters: the [energy] is sensed either around the area affected by a given pathology or in the vicinity of the source of the problem. For example, ankle pathology can be the cause of muscular tension in the neck; thus the signal might be perceived either in the ankle or the neck area. This complicates any attempt to identify the signal by comparison to objective means of observation (eg scanners, x-rays, MRI and so forth). The same is true of treatments carried out by means of ‘magnetic passes’; the area to be treated cannot be determined by reference either to the affected area or to the area deemed to be the cause of the pathology. Moreover, a validation based on the sensations of patients would be lengthy and difficult to implement, and would not furnish a satisfactory solution to the problem of observation according to objective parameters.”

After long consultation two tests were set up. In the first, preliminary test, Mr Z determined for each investigator from which part of the body he detected the strongest signal. He was then blindfolded, and he examined each in random order. Result, two successes out of nine attempts: failure.

For the second and definitive test, Mr Z chose the skeptic whose “body energy” he found to be the strongest. This was a female member of the investigating group. The two members with the weakest “energies” assisted Mr Z. A screen was set up across a doorway between two rooms, with Mr Z and his assistants on one side, and the other investigators and the subject on the other. In several dummy runs Mr Z claimed to feel the “energy” through the screen when the subject was present, so a series of 100 tests, with 50 “positives” (subject behind screen), and 50 “negatives” (subject not behind screen). Mr Z expressed himself satisfied with the test, and was keen to have the results published. Of 100 tries, two were discarded because, by reason of misunderstanding of signals, the subject’s position did not match that indicated by the previously randomly selected positives and negatives. For statistical significance, 98 tries require 64 correct answers. Unfortunately for Mr Z, he achieved only 55. These unsurprising results confirm previous findings and our expectations from our present knowledge of the physical world. What did surprise me was the great empathy between the skeptics and Mr Z. Their report shows almost great disappointment that he failed. Is this the stuff skeptics are supposed to be made of?

The title of this article is quoted by the investigators as the comment by the president of OZ when the news was reported to him.

Acupuncturist Charms the Worms

A London-based New Zealander has been named “World Champion Worm Charmer” after a competition in Devon. Garry Trainer, from Auckland, won the award by convincing 51 worms to come to the surface of a metre-square section of a field in 15 minutes.

The Harley Street osteopath and acupuncturist entered the competition at Awton at the last minute.

He said: “People were trying all sorts of things, like using watering cans to replicate the sound of rain or connecting their mobile phones to a computer to send vibrations into the ground.” He said he used his acupuncture needles and a secret elixir.
Christchurch Press

My Near Death Experience?

It began like any other Saturday morning, out of bed even later than on weekdays, a leisurely breakfast, dismembering the 10 sections of the Press, and settling to a good long read. It was then that the pain began, and intensified until something had to be done. No time to send for homoeopathic medicines, no time to summon the healing hands of a Therapeutic Touch practitioner. No! Into an ambulance and delivery into the hands of the conventional medics at Christchurch Hospital.

It is well known that doctors in general are closed-minded, arrogant, mendacious and venal; nurses have acquired pretensions to professionalism, forgetting their proper duties of pillow smoothing and bedpan emptying. So the outlook was rather grim as I was wheeled into the A&E department. My fears were confirmed when none of these so-called experts looked at my irises, tickled the soles of my feet, or swung a crystal pendulum over me in making a diagnosis.

Rather, I was exposed to the fancy toys these people like to play with, x-ray and CT scan machines. And so the mechanical process ground on: sedation, urinary catheter, anaesthesia, the surgeon’s knife, and a hazy coming to.

It is well known to us Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) enthusiasts that, even more than usually, the convalescent body needs an extensive supply of dietary supplements, vitamins, minerals, and lots of medicines from Nature’s pharmacopoeia. I was offered none of these energy-giving materials and immunity boosters: just plenty of ordinary, well-cooked food. In spite of this deprivation, my body managed somehow to recover, and I was allowed to escape from the clutches of conventional medicine.

But, I hear you ask, what about the Near Death Experience (NDE)? Well, that villainous anaesthetist so adjusted his taps and valves that my brain never got anywhere near the tunnel and the brightness, so I was denied this life-enhancing experience. Spoilsport!

A Skeptical Response

Occasionally, the NZ Skeptics receive correspondence from members of the general public. Recently, Chairentity Vicki Hyde took the time to reply to one of these. Portions of the original letter are indented.

Dear Margaret

Thank you for your comments, though it’s sad to see that you believe the general stereotype of skeptic:

The mere term ‘skeptic’ is enough to conjure (oops, not a word skeptics like, I’m sure) up an image of a cynical, dogmatic person, afraid to step outside the realms of their small, unen-lightened world.

“Conjure” would actually be a very suitable term used in skeptical circles, as we have many magicians as members, as well as teachers, homemakers, researchers, a broad sweep of humanity. There are very few who fit the stereotype you have assumed, as about the only thing we have in common is the desire to actually step outside the realm and find out what makes us what we are, what encourages us to think how we do and to respond the way we do to the world around us.

About the only type of person we don’t have in the skeptical ranks are fundamentalist dogmatics, as they are taught to never question authority, and skeptics, by their very nature always ask questions and, in many cases, accept that there are some things we will never have the answers for.

I imagine that Rande, who was featured on a programme about homoeopathy on TV1 last night is typical of the average “skeptic” who desperately goes around trying to “debunk” anything that is not “clinically proven in a scientifically controlled experiment”.

No, not debunking, but investigating — most of us don’t like the term “debunk”, as it implies a biased viewpoint to start with, but the media does persist in using it.

We always try to investigate with an open mind and with the knowledge that everyone is fallible, we are all able to be fooled or biased. And that when extraordinary claims are made, it should involve an extraordinary level of proof.

Randi was asked in because magicians have a very clear professional understanding of how people can be mistaken or hood-winked, whether intentionally or accidentally.

Scientists, however, work in an environment of collegial honesty, which makes them more vulnerable, in some respects, to deception or assumptions. That’s one of the reasons why science encourages investigation, repeated observation, independent corroboration and all the other aspects that help us to differentiate between what we think we know and what we know, to try to eliminate our own biases, prejudices and assumptions in learning about the world.

I wonder if you skeptics ever experience a ‘hunch’ or a ‘gut feeling’ or, dare I say it, intuition … I imagine not — I mean, how can you prove it?

Yes we do. I had a long interview with a reporter this year about the nature of intuition. Sadly the editor wanted to hear only about “just so” intuition anecdotes, rather than the interesting story of why humans feel so strongly about intuition, how it has proven useful to us and why we have such difficulty remembering when it doesn’t work.

I think that intuition is the capacity for apparently making reasonably accurate predictions about the near future based on a combination of both definable and, for the most part, indefinable factors. We’ve all experienced those times when we “just know” something and, when we’re proved right, that’s an immensely powerful reinforcing factor for a belief in intuition or psychic abilities or whatever you think such an experience is based upon.

Humans are, after all, a pattern-seeking animal — we look for patterns in the stars and try and find meaning in them; we analyse our dreams; we try and find cause-and-effect in all manner of connections.

What we humans don’t do, is readily recall the experiences which provide counter-examples to the belief in causal relationships or intuition. We don’t bother thinking “gee, I felt something bad was going to happen today and nothing did!” Instead we look for confirmation of our beliefs — “gee I felt something bad was going to happen today, and look, a week later, I had a car crash!”

However, in our enthusiasm to over-simplify and gain control over our destiny, we have often taken such things too far — that star up there makes the Nile flood (bzzt, wrong!); bleeding a patient will rebalance their humours (bzzt, wrong!); that person is inferior to me because they are a different gender/race/religion/skin colour (bzzt, very wrong!).

There are hundreds and hundreds of people whose flashes of intuition or desperate hopes or even sheer bloody hard work, did not succeed, but you don’t hear about them, they don’t have the compelling story, they don’t get the column-centimetres in the glossy magazines.

Which demonstrates another key psychological point — one strong personal example will always far outweigh collective experience and general statistics.

As in, “my child got a bad reaction to immunisation which means yours will too” generates a much more powerful response in parents than millions and millions of non-affected children in some faceless study. And you see that in operation on Holmes every time the immunisation debate heats up…

I have had, on at least four occasions over the past 20 years, very strong feelings that my father had died or something had happened to him. Once I even rang him in the middle of the night from Japan, where I was living, just to check that he was OK, the feeling was so strong. I was wrong all four times. And the week he did die, I had no inkling at all, much to my sorrow.

I once had an incredibly vivid dream that my second son Perry fell off a bridge into a fast-flowing river. Very, very vivid dream — wind blowing, sharp streetlight shining on the water, his face disappearing beneath the muddy swirls, a terrible gut-churning wrench. Still makes me shudder even six years later. But he was just a toddler in my dream and he’s well past that now, at nine years old. And no, he’s never fallen off a bridge.

Now I am very conscious of the importance of counter-examples, so I have made a point of remembering those times when I have had strong feelings or dreams that haven’t panned out so I can say honestly that we do have such feelings and sometimes they are wrong.

But if my father had had problems within a week or so of any of those times I had worried about him, I could easily claim it as “proof” that intuition works…

Part of it comes down to an understanding of the statistics of coincidence. If I had continued to have dire warnings of my Dad’s imminent demise, then odds-on I would have had one some time close to the point he did die.

Thank goodness the majority of the world is comprised of thinking, feeling, spiritual beings who are intelligent and open minded enough to realise that life is comprised of such complex, multi faceted components which make up our universe and which no scientist or skeptic could possibly begin to understand or prove in a laboratory.

I’d agree with you with the first part — skeptics are incurable optimists and we’d love to believe that the majority of the world is comprised as you describe. It may be that you are confusing skepticism with scientism; the latter is the dogmatic view that science explains everything. Ironically enough, very few real scientists subscribe to it, although the stereotypes assume that they do…

As regards the second assertion, I don’t think any scientist or skeptic worth their salt would suggest that all things are explicable or provable in a lab. We recognise the need for humility in the face of the universe’s complexity, but we also appreciate that some of the complexity can be known better and appreciated in all its glory, if we but ask questions.

As a medievalist, I know that the stars were once regarded (at least in the Judaeo-Christian West) as bright points of light fixed in an immoveable globe of crystal. As a keen amateur astronomer, I know that the universe is much more complicated than that. I would say that the later knowledge is no less beautiful, fascinating and uplifting than the former view, and all the more powerful for being based in reality and shared with millions of others regardless of their culture or world view.

I see you skeptics are making submissions regarding complementary health in New Zealand. Don’t waste your time… Natural medicine is the fastest-growing industry in the world and will continue to be …

Yes, we know it is very popular, which is why it is important to be sure that it is both safe and effective — we can ask no less of anything which we use as medicines, regardless of whether it is herbal or industrial in origin. Anything less is not only potentially dangerous but also ethically unacceptable.

We don’t allow used-car salesmen to make unsubstatiated claims about their vehicles or sell unroadworthy ones (or if they do, we prosecute them). Our health, and the health of our children deserves no less scrutiny.

We recognise that medically useful things have come from chance discoveries, which is why it is important to keep an open mind. What we need to do is ensure that any practice or product we use is safer and more effective than whatever we currently have. That’s the gist of our Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) submission — have you read it? (You can see it online at the Skeptics website, as we believe in open, transparent communication.)

Oh by the way, did you know that 80% of pharmaceutical drugs have no proven efficacy.

I’m not sure where your figure comes from, but certainly there is far too much useage and far too little scientific underpinning for many widely used products. That awareness has led the push for reexamining what drugs we use, how effective they are and whether there are better alternatives.

That’s why you’ll find skeptical groups as equally vocal about the over-prescribing of antibiotics as they are cautious about the claims for mega-vitamin dosages.

It’s why we often point out that a good two-thirds (if not more) of what ails us will get better within three days, regardless of whether you visit a GP or a homeopath.

It’s why we support evidence-based medicine which looks at safety and efficacy issues, critically examing our own assumptions about long-held medical beliefs. We know, for example, by looking at the evidence, that earache in children is best left alone and monitored, rather than treated with antibiotics. We know, by looking at the evidence, that episiotomies for childbirth aren’t warranted in the vast majority of cases, and have been pleased to see their use drop significantly.

We wouldn’t know these things if we didn’t stop to ask questions, to assess the evidence. And, if we are going to hand over our money or our lives to any kind of medical practitioner, surely it makes sense to ensure that they know what they are doing?

…and that 13,000 New Zealanders a year die from the side effects of medically prescribed drugs. Now that is a worry and something you skeptics would be far better off being skeptical about…

That’s an astonishing figure if you stop to think about it (which, after all, is all that skeptics ask people to do…). Where does it come from?

Lessee, that’s half of all deaths in New Zealand annually (I’m using the figures from the 1995 NZ Yearbook, which is the most recent one I have to hand, but I don’t think the figures have changed that much; it cites 26,437 deaths in total).

I guess if you assume that everyone who has cancer or heart disease or cerebrovascular disease died purely as a result of their medication (which assumes they were on medication in the first place), then you’d get somewhere near the figure you quote. But I don’t really think that that is a valid assumption, do you?

Given the type of disease and the likely demographics, then it wouldn’t be unsurprising to have a large number on medication, but the mere fact of that would not be enough to warrant the assertion that it was the drugs wot did it! While we can be critical about regulatory systems, medical practice, the public health system etc, a death rate of that size solely attributable to side effects from medicine would be Big News.

I don’t think that the aspirin my Dad was taking for his heart disease killed him, for example — he died because his heart finally stopped working. And, in fact, I believe that it may well have given him an additional 15 years he would not have had otherwise (the time between his first heart attack and his final), given the evidence for aspirin’s use in heart problems.

We can only find out whether there is a causal relationship between things by examining case after case after case, hence the importance of evidence and record keeping.

We’d encourage CAM practitioners to be involved in this (and some of the best are), not only to help their clients but also to help a better understanding of health issues and responses themselves.

My apologies for the length of this response, Margaret, but the issues you raise are not simple ones, and there are no simple answers. I hope you’ve taken the time to read this far — it’s a sad irony that we often find it’s those who are involved in alternative viewpoints who are not willing to hear other views or reconsider their beliefs. I guess that’s the nature of humanity, but one always lives in the hope of encouraging others to think more deeply — that’s what the NZ Skeptics are all about.

Sincerely
Vicki Hyde
Chair-entity

Three Rules for Sticking Needles in People

Bob Brockie gets himself a qualification in acupuncture

Last year a healthy anaesthesiologist, Dr Kinsinger, visited nine chiropractors in Oklahoma, claiming that his chest or back were playing up. All nine chiropractors misdiagnosed some kind of illness including appendicitis, misplaced bones or shifting ribs. Clearly, these guys had no idea of what they were doing, falling well short of conventional medical standards.

Back here, I once attended a Skeptics Society demonstration at Massey University. There, a medical doctor showed us how to make homeopathic concoctions by running a few drops of fluorescent dye along a row of 20 glass flasks filled with distilled water. He diluted, diluted and further diluted the mix until, by the 20th flask, there was theoretically not a molecule of the dye left — only distilled water.

In making their concoctions homeopaths do the same thing but with the juice of lawn daisies, onions, snake venom, sepia ink, sulphur and the like. They dilute the stuff until not a molecule remains in their 20th, 30th or 200th flasks, only distilled water. This is what they sell you, claiming that their remedies cure or relieve anything from asthma and infertility to fear of flying.

Most scientists and doctors are very dubious about these claims because they fly in the face of a basic chemical “Law of Mass Action”. The law says if you want to intensify a chemical reaction, add more chemicals. If you want to weaken a reaction, dilute the chemical.

At a later demonstration, another medical doctor and one-time acupuncturist showed us how to become an acupuncturist. “You need know only three rules.” He said. “One: Keep your needles clean. Two: Never stick needles into very fat people and Three: If a patient is really sick, send them to a proper doctor.” After 20 minutes’ instruction we were all given certificates, mine countersigned by a distinguished physician, certifying that we were all now acupuncturists. Again, endless medical trials show that acupuncture doesn’t work. One survey of almost 200 American acupuncturists revealed 132 cases of fainting, 26 cases of increased pain, eight cases of punctured lungs and 45 other adverse results in their patients.

Naturopaths claim they can rid your body of toxins and increase your “vital force”. The entire discipline of organic chemistry refutes this nonsense.

Scientific and medical trials of these four disciplines reveal that their short-term successes depend not on the treatments but on placebo effects.

If you want to know more about these fraudulent shenanigans go to Quackwatch or to the US or Australian National Councils Against Health Fraud on the web.

Originally published in the Dominion Post, 19 January, 2004

Hokum Locum

Selenium – Too Much of a Good Thing?

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

A 52-year-old dairy farmer presented to her doctor with chronic aches and pains, lethargy, sore throat and painful swallowing. After some weeks of fruitless investigations she admitted to taking 0.5ml daily of a solution containing 5mg/ml of selenium, several times the recommended daily human dose. All of her symptoms disappeared once she stopped taking the supplement.

Despite the lack of proof for any deficiency syndrome in adults, local pharmacy leaflets stated “selenium is an essential trace element” and that “low levels of selenium are linked to a higher risk for cancer, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory diseases and other conditions associated with free radical damage, including premature ageing and cataract formation.”

It is quite clear that it would have been much safer for this woman to have taken a homeopathic selenium remedy and there would have been no risk at all of any toxicity from over dosage.
NZ Family Physician Vol 30 Number 6, Dec 2003

Animal Homeopathy

I know that homeopathy has been done to death but it crops up everywhere, even in the treatment of animals. People defend this delusion by claiming that the placebo effect does not work in animals, therefore any observed effect must be real. Any observed effect is clearly due to expectation on the part of the person administering the water, sorry, I mean the homeopathic remedy. An article in the Christchurch Press (March 12, 2004) described how Taranaki’s first qualified animal homeopath has gained an “advanced diploma of homeopathy”. She also has a BSc and it beggars belief that someone with that background can take up a pseudoscience such as homeopathy. This is what HL Mencken was referring to when he said: “How is it possible for a human brain to be divided into two insulated halves, one functioning normally, naturally, and even brilliantly, and the other capable of ghastly balderdash?”

I find it amusing reading such accounts because the clue to the belief system is usually contained in the article but is unrecognised. In this case the animals are described as “glowing with health in a way that suggests good feeding and love but their appearance is so striking it indicates there is another ingredient as well”. You guessed it — the other ingredient is homeopathy! It’s obvious that the animals’ condition is due to the “good feeding and love” and to claim otherwise is a delusion.

It would not in the least surprise me if the diploma of advanced homeopathy is NZQA approved.

Snake Oil Flunks for Snake Bite

Boonreung Bauchan was known in Thailand as the “Snake Man” and held a Guinness world record for spending seven days in a snake enclosure. The Mamba family of snakes are extremely venomous and when one of them bit him on the elbow he relied on a traditional herbal remedy and a shot of whisky. As we all know, herbal remedies are mostly placebos and should not be used for serious or life-threatening conditions and Boonreung is sadly no longer with us. Had he taken a proper antidote, his chances of survival would have been excellent.
Christchurch Press March 23, 2004

Counsellors

If you get up in the morning and find your letterbox has been vandalised, don’t worry, counselling is available to help with your distress and grief. (Dominion Post March 6, 2004).

Following September 11, an estimated 9000 grief counsellors turned up in New York and one hotel was booked out by a single group of 350 counsellors. This absurd behaviour is of course defended by the counselling “industry” despite the existence of research that shows that many of such interventions are actually harmful. Counsellors defend their behaviour by claiming that it cannot be scientifically tested. For example: “People working from the scientific model want to measure outcomes. A lot of people would say, ‘I feel better’, but that doesn’t fit a scientific model.”

Such claims should be treated with complete contempt. This sort of reasoning could be used to justify the implementation of all sorts of quackery because it makes people “feel better”.

To put it bluntly, counselling is a placebo therapy. Third-party funding ensures that an industry has been able to develop. This has disempowered people from learning to deal with personal trauma by simply talking to a friend or other family members.

Hair Analysis

Last year I spent some time working in Westport and noticed an advertisement for hair analysis. Hair analysis does have a scientific basis but it has been taken over by quacks who offer all sorts of ridiculous assessments. When I got home I wrote to the address and sent hair from my wife Claire and my oldest daughter Eve, under their own names, and some hair from “Russell”. “Russell” was actually my daughter’s dog, a wheaten terrier.

For $40 I received a detailed four-page handwritten report and after reading it I felt quite mean because the writer’s sincerity was obvious. I have sent a copy of the letter to the Editor but will summarise the main findings. I see no value in exposing the writer because the letter was written in good faith but note that sincerity and good faith can go hand in hand with gullibility and foolishness. His findings were as follows:

Claire needs natural estrogen — “raspberry leaf” two tabs daily. Wormwood — 5 drops in water daily. Bach flower remedies — “Mimulus, Rock Rose”. Conscious deep breathing — practise six times daily. There was also a recommendation to have “faith” and consider the Bahai religion for that reason.

Eve had a systemic yeast infection. Recommended treatment: nystatin, aloe vera juice, Blackmores chewable tablets, wheatgerm capsules, super strength kelp, rescue remedy (Homeopathic), extra progesterone in the form of “wild yam cream”.

Russell also had a systemic yeast infection, and iodine deficiency. Recommended treatment: nystatin (oral antifungal agent), self heal tincture — 50 drops twice daily, herbal B vitamins — six tabs daily, super strength kelp — three tabs daily. Repeat hair analysis in three months.

It is easy to see that such a “scatter gun” approach to treatment would be bound to work in a well-motivated believer. I did not inquire as to the method of hair analysis but this is unimportant because any diagnostic method will work provided it is plausible and the treatment offered is congruent with the particular belief system. The homeopathic vet would no doubt approve of Russell’s diagnosis and treatment.

Shockwaves for chronic heel pain

High energy sound waves are now being used to treat various conditions such as tennis elbow and other painful areas such as the heel, knee and shoulder. It is claimed that 60-70 per cent of patients will gain relief from the treatment.

The same technology (extra-corporeal shockwave therapy or ESWT) is used to disintegrate kidney stones.

In the case of kidney stones there is no need for a randomised controlled trial (RCT) because it is obvious when a large stone has been broken down into smaller pieces.

When treating various painful conditions with no such “marker”, one has to be much more cautious and this therapy is crying out for a randomised controlled trial with a placebo group who would receive treatment administered when neither the patient nor the technician were aware that the machine was actually switched off. I predict that when such trials are carried out, there will be no advantage over placebo.
NZ GP November 12, 2003

Forum

Global Warming — Where Should Skeptics Stand?

Although I have been receiving free email alerts for a long time, I am a (very) new member. Among the goodies which I received a couple of days ago was the Spring, 2003 newsletter, number 69. Obviously, free speech is the first requisite of such an organ, but I was rather taken aback by contribution in Forum from Lance Kennedy of Tantec, an organisation in the biocide industry, on the subject of global warming. Its content is highly selective, and it contravenes all the principles outlined in the Skeptics Guide to Critical Thinking. He writes of a “sound and healthy reluctance to subscribe to anthropogenic greenhouse… warming”. He says that the Scientific American is committed to “greenie (a pejorative term which has no place in a serious discussion) nonsense”.

He believes that criticism of Bjorn Lomborg, author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” comes into this category. Perhaps it is time to look more carefully at Lomborg. Until recently, this very personable young man held a rather lowly position on the staff of the political “science” department at Aarhus University, Denmark, and since his book was published, he has become the archpriest of the multi-billion dollar greenwashing industry. Although the greenwashers’ hype portrays him as a “brilliant statistician”, the Statistics Department of his own university has publicly disowned (on the university website) his methods as flawed and unacceptable. He writes of many disciplines, but he has never published a peer-reviewed paper in any of them. In every discipline, his methods, data, and conclusions have been roundly repudiated by a large majority of the scientific establishment of that discipline. Who then is right? — a lonely Don Quixote, tilting at imaginary windmills, or the scientific establishment?

Kennedy deals with three issues; these are:

  1. “Glacial extensions of the polar icecap on Mars are now in retreat. Peninsulas and islands of ice disappearing”. This he naively takes as evidence that solar output must be increasing. However, this is in fact evidence of precisely the opposite! Atmospheric cooling on Mars locks water vapour up as ice in the icecaps, and causes the lower latitude extensions to disappear rapidly. Own goal!
  2. “Meteorologists are adopting a new stance… many want to move away from ‘anthropogenicity’ and accept that warming happens.” This rather vague statement falls into the category of a paper tiger or, as the “Skeptics Guide to Creation “Science” puts it, a straw man. I am not aware that meteorologists “want” to believe in anthropogenic warming. It is put forward as the most probable explanation of the observed facts. Indeed, most would be delighted to be proved wrong. This is where real science differs from junk science. Greenwashers “know” they are right; scientists try to preserve open minds. Another example of naivety is to suggest that meteorologists have a vested interest in “preserving the myth”, for fear of losing their research grants. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are a thousand reasons for wishing to learn more about our climate and global warming research is a by-product rather than the primary object. If all such research were to cease immediately, it would make little or no difference to climate research as a whole. What meteorologists and others recommend is the exercise of prudence in the light of current theory. This is opposed both by greenwashers and by many in the pseudoscience of economics as advocated by those of the Friedman school, in whose eyes “sustainable development” is never an oxymoron.
  3. He refers to a paper on the influence of cosmic rays on the atmosphere, though not to the original paper by Fangqun Yu of the State University of New York. It was put forward as a mere hypothesis at this stage, and if subsequent work provides confirmation it will be a useful explanation for the anomalous discrepancy between surface temperatures and those in the atmosphere just above, which will be welcomed by all meteorologists. Kennedy doesn’t mention that Yu also suggests that interaction between greenhouse gases and the ionisation caused by cosmic rays may also be a contributing factor to greenhouse warming. Yu also points out that his hypothesis does not in any way rule out anthropogenic contributions to gobal warming.

Alan P Ryan, Retired meteorologist

Global Warming

In contrast to Lance Kennedy (Forum 69), I regret the failure of The Skeptics to recognise the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

The basics are undeniable:

  • Atmospheric carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere by blocking outgoing radiation.
  • Anthropogenic emissions of CO2 have been growing for two centuries, and especially in the last half century. Atmospheric CO2 is now a third higher than pre-industrial levels.
  • Radiation from the earth into space has been measured directly. A comparison of data for 1990 and 1997 showed the expected fall, with the largest reductions at the predicted wavelengths.

Beyond the basics, climate change is hellishly complex and far from fully understood, but enough is known to show a clear anthropogenic effect. The UN’s IPCC have taken a consensus overview of the work being done in a very wide range of fields. Their third assessment report, issued just three years ago, estimated that average temperatures would rise another 1.4-5.8°C between 1990 and 2100. That range looks very uncertain, but about half the uncertainty is in the human response: we can still limit the maximum rise to around 2.5°C if we get our act together. However, global warming will continue for centuries, no matter how quickly we reduce emissions.

Problems with CO2 and temperature are be expected, and the details will be debated and cross-checked for many years to come. However, the data is already good enough to identify minor effects. One such effect was a mysterious warming and cooling over a 1000 year cycle, traceable over 10,000 years. It turned out to be the moon, changing its orbit and hence the strength of the tides and the extent of vertical mixing of the ocean. Higher tides create more mixing, bring up more cold water and cool the atmosphere.

Of course, it is possible that new evidence will show that global warming will soon go away — good science has to be falsifiable. But the evidence produced by Kennedy is not it, and the precautionary principle tells us not to put our shirts on him. There is now enough evidence to allow a great deal of cross-checking: the Greenland ice cores tell the same story as the Atlantic silt cores; the effects of varying solar radiation and changes in the earth’s and moon’s orbits have been factored in; the cooling caused by the Mt Pinatubo eruption improved understanding of some minor effects; and so on. And on.

With so much evidence already gathered, it is not enough for the global warming contrarians to point to isolated studies; that is like pointing to a back eddy as evidence that the stream is flowing uphill. If there is a serious case against global warming let us hear it — but it will need to be good.

Kerry Wood, Wanganui

Science and Morality

Bruce Taylor is a high priest of the anti-human, anti-science, anti-Darwinist religion of Environmentalism. He has no use for science unless it can be used to support his dogmatic opinions and the “policies” based on them.

On the other hand he is much more tolerant of religion, myth, prejudice, suspicion, custom, fantasy, and old wives’ tales.

Alan Hart is quite wrong to claim that “science doesn’t necessarily say anything about moral values”. Moral values, which may be defined as the rules which govern societies, are essential for evolutionary survival and progress of every society.

Most societies possess rigidly tyrannical “moral values” .We are, each of us, a society composed of genetically and chemically controlled specialised cells, each derived from a single embryo, only one kind of which participates in reproduction. Any dissident cell becomes a cancer and causes death of the whole organism.

Ants, bees, and termites, are also genetically and chemically controlled fascist dictatorships, and their evolutionary success depends on it. Most animal societies such as monkeys and seals have equally ruthless “moral values”.

Early human societies had similar “moral values” to monkeys, and some, such as approval of murder, rape and slavery, survive today in primitive tribes. “Moral values” of human societies have included wholesale genocide, the burning of heretics and witches, slavery and cannibalism. Torture and slavery are common today, and even genocide is a “moral value” recently practised in several societies.

Progress of human society depends on an improved emphasis on human moral values and a priority for human rights, a reduction of war, violence, hunger, disease, prejudice, suspicion and irrationalism, and a continued advance of science and technology.

Environmentalism is opposed to human “moral values” because it

  • Regards animals and other organisms as more important than humans.
  • Considers evolution to be always harmful, exclusively caused by humans, and capable of being prevented.
  • Fundamentally opposes modern technology, such as genetic engineering and nuclear energy.
  • Regards science only as a support mechanism for these views.

Our society cannot progress unless we can restore genuine human moral values.

Vincent Gray, Wellington

Socialism and Starvation

So, I again find myself in an argument with Jim Ring. I think I preferred it when we were all united against the purveyors of quack medicines and fundamentalist religions.

Jim Ring rightly claims that few people have read the literature on famine. I’m not surprised, it is vast. But I can quote 33 peer reviewed works on the subject, ranging from some by a Nobel laureate economist, to Cambridge historians. When I did a quick Google on those sources that Ring provided for his evidence I found for one no match, and for the other an ideologically driven American so-called think tank. I must admit that I have read nothing of this type of literature, but then neither do I read the stuff by UFO “researchers”.

Ring is right about one thing, his original letter confused me. If the Oxus Research foundation, whoever they are, suggest you can use the words socialism and starvation without further clarification, they are wrong. It is necessary to know what is meant by socialism because definitions depend more on one’s own position on the political spectrum than any objective criteria. I also think it’s necessary to know what Ring meant by people starved under socialism, because by itself it’s a meaningless statement which requires the qualification that people have also starved under capitalism, feudalism and any other -ism you care to name. Although to be honest I could probably make out quite a good case for no famines in Germany under Nazism — does this make them good?

Famine, or starvation if Ring insists on the word, occurs for any number of reasons rather than simple socialism — or capitalism for that matter. Again Ring has jumped into an area where he is out of his depth, to make a political point. For every famine he can quote me under a Socialist government I can quote him at least one under a capitalist regime. The Indian state with the highest literacy rate and life expectancy has been run by socialists in various coalitions for years. Ring is oversimplifying to make a political point.

Ring also makes generalisations about the anti-globalisation movement. As far as I can see they are not some sort of monolithic anti-capitalist group but consist of a number of quite disparate groupings including trade unions in developed countries who resent exporting jobs, and farmers’ groups in underdeveloped countries who quite like globalisation but resent the fact that the developed countries such as the United States and the European Union don’t apply it to themselves.

I also think that Ring has misunderstood the term green revolution. Perhaps he is confusing it with more recent genetic modification of crops. I can’t see why the green revolution, which largely consisted of improvements in irrigation, fertilization and the development of new strains of rice, should be against socialist principles. For one thing some of the new strains of rice were developed in government laboratories in India under so-called socialist governments. And if the idea was against socialist principles why did Stalin spend so long trying to create a green revolution of his own? In fact many of the new strains of rice were rejected by the very people they were meant to benefit, because they require large amounts of fertiliser and extra water which they could not afford. The earlier strains also tasted bad and were therefore rejected by the market.

I stand by my statement that Ring provides little other than glib generalisations and inaccurate case studies. One thing I have found by reading articles from the new right is that they tend to leave out economic case studies that don’t fit the ideological bent. I think Ring does the same. However I will make this offer — I don’t think that the pages of the New Zealand Skeptic the correct forum for publishing political tracts, so if he gives up writing them I’ll give up criticising them.

Bob Metcalfe

Yes, enough politics already! This correspondence is now closed -ed.

Kinesiology

Dr. Welch’s Hokum Locum column in NZ Skeptic 69 contains the words “pseudoscience known as kinesiology”. This is incorrect. Kinesiology is a respected, science-based, study of human movement dynamics. Several universities offer degrees in this field — eg University of Waterloo, in Canada. See http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/admissions/whykin.html. Perhaps Dr. Welch is thinking of “Applied Kinesiology” which is indeed crackpot stuff.

Vaso Bovan, P.E., Canada

Hokum Locum

Cellulite – Just a Euphemism for Fat

Cellulite is the term used by women’s magazines to describe dimpled fat. It has no scientific or anatomical validity and it is simply ordinary fatty tissue that assumes a waffled appearance because fibrous tissue prevents the skin from fully expanding in areas where fatty tissue accumulates. This has been confirmed by a study where biopsies of fat and cellulite were microscopically indistinguishable by pathologists who were blinded as to the samples’ origin. Calling fat “cellulite” is part of the modern trend to seeking alternatives to the (unpalatable) truth, in this case an adipose euphemism.

The latest treatment for Cellulite involves a machine called Cellu-M6. It is described as having “even been approved by the strict Amer-ican Food and Drugs Administration”. I checked the FDA website and although I could not find the machine specifically mentioned it did refer to a “Dermosonic Non-Invasive Subdermal Therapy System”, presumably using ultra-sonic stimulation of the skin. The FDA “approval” is nothing of the sort, merely an acknowledgement that the machine is similar to others already on the market. There is nothing in the FDA response indicating any approval or endorsement of the device beyond noting that it “temporarily reduces the appearance of cellulite”.

Given that about half of the New Zealand population are obese, and roughly half of these are women, this makes for a huge and lucrative market. The Cellu-M6 machine is described as “breaking down the cellulite, toxins and abnormal water build-up are expelled and the increased blood flow stimulates enzymes which encourage fat cells to break down.” Journalists sometimes inadvertently get close to the truth and the article states in part “While it seems almost too good to be true…” Well, yes, it is.

With all worthless treatments it is essential to get the punters to do something for themselves, which in itself is actually effective, for example: “You’ll still need to do some work. Walking, exercise and watching what you eat.” The most well-motivated customers will be the ones who actually do exercise and lose weight. They will be thrilled with the results, happy with the cost and completely oblivious as to the real reason for their loss of cellulite (weight).
New Idea 4/1/03

Cannabis

For various legislative and historical reasons, cannabis use is illegal in New Zealand. My feeling is, why legalise cannabis when we already have so much suffering from the abuse of tobacco and alcohol? Nevertheless, on the medical evidence available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill effect on health. Cannabis has been studied for possible use in various medical conditions but there are problems with drug delivery as most researchers feel that it is unacceptable to administer it through smoking and oral bioavailability is variable.

A recent Lancet study of patients with multiple sclerosis found that cannabis had no measurable effect on muscle stiffness or jerkiness. The patients, however, stated, “it had reduced their symptoms and improved their mobility.” I went to the Lancet website and there are problems with this study. Fifty percent of the placebo wing of the trial claimed benefit and because of the psychoactive effect of the cannabis, subjects knew whether they were taking cannabis or placebo. I have written before on the problems of clinical trials becoming “unblinded” through this effect. The researchers should have used an ‘active’ placebo, something that mimicked the effects of cannabis. It appears that researchers still lack an understanding of this process. Perhaps they should call in James Randi to help them?

Despite the lack of evidence for the medical use of cannabis, “a wealthy Christchurch businessman caught growing cannabis has escaped without a conviction after convincing a High Court judge that he used it medically.”

I can just see future headlines at the next sitting of the Dargaville Court: “Unemployed Maori youth of no fixed abode acquitted of growing cannabis after convincing the Judge he used it for a medical condition”. Yeah, right.

But wait! The businessman, we are told, suffered from a painful bowel condition diagnosed as “pyloric sphincter”. That explains everything. We all have a pyloric sphincter. It is a thickened muscular valve at the outlet of the stomach.

All of us can now smoke cannabis with a clear conscience (write or email me for a medical certificate, but only if you are rich, say $5000 per certificate will be fine).
Dominion Post, 8/11/03, 14/12/03

Veterinary Homeopathy

I don’t normally concern myself in this area although I did recently correspond with the Veterinary Council and their policy over alternative medicine is very similar to that of the Medical Council with Doctors.

The Press (18/11/03) carried an article, which I thought was unintentionally very funny. A trainer was fined for injecting a horse with a homeopathic remedy. It was further reported, “another horse injected with it had won, been swabbed and tested negative in the past.”

Of course it tested negative! Homeopathic solutions are water and this simple fact seems to have completely escaped notice by the Judicial Control Authority. I thought I would have a bit of fun by writing to them and pointing this out so will keep you posted.

The homeopathic remedy was “Vetradyne” and was easily found by Google. A 50ml bottle costs $215 but I was unable to find its composition, or any given therapeutic indication, apart from the cryptic comment “no claims made.” It was also detailed as being for “oral” use only so it does seem strange that it was given by injection. An inquiry of the website was no more forthcoming over composition or dilution factor.

Counsellors

Every time something unpleasant happens we hear the dreaded phrase “counselling has been arranged.” Can we do anything to stop this clichéd response?

Following the illegal viewing of pornography at a school, pupils have been offered counselling. What’s wrong with today’s teachers? Can’t they handle a situation like this in a reasonable and intelligent manner? It seems that our population are willing to hand over all responsibility whenever they can. Is it because they lack confidence or is this a deliberate social policy on the part of the government? It’s certainly consistent with Government policies that encourage dependency and allow hundreds of thousands of people to indefinitely remain on welfare payments.
Dominion Post 27/8/03

Badly Behaved Children

Readers will know my attitude towards the socially engineered fad diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is treated with methylphenidate (Ritalin) and there was a 17% increase in prescriptions over the past year. The drug is being sold by parents on the black market. This does not surprise me but readers may be surprised to know that most street drugs are sourced from legal prescriptions. There are doctors in every part of New Zealand who over-prescribe a wide range of psychoactive drugs, which are then sold.

To paraphrase a well-known psychiatrist: “any behaviour of a child can be consistent with ADHD.” We must act now and add Ritalin to the drinking water. This will have the dual benefit of removing the need for parents to discipline their children and of destroying the illicit drug trade. The whole population will be happy, well behaved and in no need of counselling.
Marlborough Express 1/12/03

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

This is a pseudoscientific diagnosis where people develop a fixed illness belief about chemical exposures. It is increasingly becoming an employment issue and is a classic example of psychosomatic illness. In a typical case, a radiographer is reported as needing a face mask before leaving home because “when I have a new dose of chemicals I become unreasonably upset about anything and everything, and become ill and extremely tired, plus a host of other physical effects.” Such patients have been studied by Staudenmayer (Environmental Illness: Myth and Reality). He tested 20 patients complaining of universal sensitivity to multiple chemicals and found that “the patients’ appraisals were no different from chance performance” (ibid. p. 99). In other words, the patients’ beliefs were disproved. There is an urgent need for such testing to be available in Australasia, otherwise there will be an increasing number of these spurious claims, misattributed to employment conditions.
Marlborough Express 10/10/2003

Medical Principles

It may be time to expand the principles of the Hippocratic Oath

First do no harm. That’s the major principle of the doctor’s Hippocratic Oath. For the most part, the public are well-served by that principle and by our medical community. It’s a principle which any health professional should follow as a matter of course. But I think they could do with an addition to “First do no harm” — how about “Second, do some good&quot.

I’m not convinced, though, that that would have been enough to help the unfortunate patients of Dr Richard Gorringe, the Hamilton GP recently struck off the register after being found guilty of disgraceful conduct. His combination of unorthodox practices appeared to pass neither principle for a number of his patients, and he was found to have caused them “unnecessary suffering”.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this case was the comment from the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal that:

“Dr Gorringe’s belief in the accuracy of his diagnoses and in the efficacy of his unusual treatments is such that the tribunal can have no confidence that, were he to continue in practice, his patients would be properly advised of their nature and limitations so as to permit informed choice.”

Patient advocates have fought long and hard to get informed choice enshrined as an important principle in medical practice, so it’s worrying to hear that Mr Gorringe intends to continue to offer medical advice and treatment, albeit as a naturopath.

Given the tribunal’s caveat, one wonders how informed his next patients will be as to the principles guiding his treatments. And what protection or redress, if any, there will be for future patients who find themselves undergoing “unnecessary suffering”.

These are not questions solely for the Gorringe case, however, but ones we all need to consider. After all, we have a Ministerial Advisory Committee for Complementary and Alternative Health currently examining what modalities are to be integrated into the New Zealand health system, and what regulations, if any, this new and lucrative health market is to operate under. The committee has defined complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to include “all such practices and ideas self-defined by their users as preventing or treating illness or promoting health and wellbeing.”

I guess this extremely loose definition is understandable, given that five of the eight committee members are self-identified CAM practitioners, with business interests in iridology, naturopathy, natural medicines, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, aromatherapy, massage therapy, counselling, sclerology, osteopathy, homeopathy, anthroposophy and culturally defined health sectors.

However, such an all-encompassing, self-serving definition doesn’t help the patient trying to decide if a recommended practice is safe and effective, and it’s a bad look for the CAM industry as a whole. Two CAM practitioners who were members of the White House Commission on CAM Policy, were honest enough to warn that:

“Generic recommendations neither serve the public interest nor protect the public health because they fail to distinguish between approaches, practices and products for which there is some scientific evidence and those that either stretch the realm of logic or are demonstrably unsafe.”

And while it’s said more Kiwis are turning to alternatives, they also want reassurance that not only are such practices safe, but that they will really work. According to the New Zealand Family Physician journal, 71 per cent of New Zealand patients surveyed wanted regulation of complementary medicine to be on a par with orthodox medicine.

The distinction, of course, is an artificial one. As Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, says, there is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work.

Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. Everyone would welcome cures for cancer, eczema, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, whatever their origin, so long as they do no harm and, as an equally important requirement, actually do some good.

But if the modality involved has no basic grounding in reality, then it doesn’t matter how many doctors take it up, how many products are sold, how well integrated it is in our hospitals, it won’t do any good and, as demonstrated, can do a great deal of harm — physical, emotional and economic.

Any health practitioner, whether registered doctor or naturopath, who refuses to acknowledge this, is guilty of disgraceful conduct. You don’t need a professional board to tell you that, just simple ethical principles.

Newsfront

Dying is Bad for Business

An Auckland law firm was going to court late last year (Dominion Post, November 1) to block the opening of a funeral parlour opposite it. Death (or dealing with it) offends against the ancient Chinese art of feng shui. Contact with death can lead to bad luck and negative energy could flow from the funeral parlour into the law firm. The firm was concerned it would lose its Asian clients if the parlour opened. The parlour, meantime, said it had been granted resource consent. Haven’t heard the outcome yet…

Ringing in new changes

And while on the subject of feng shui, here’s a tip for Telecom. Feng shui specialist Honey Lim says the company should relaunch its new logo in February to capture the powerful energy of a new age in the feng shui calendar. In the Dominion Post (November 26) Ms Lim says she approves of Telecom’s new logo, which is in harmony with feng shui. Telecom spent $140,000 on the logo, and will be happy to learn its green and blue squares underpinning the yellow rectangle have good karma. Ms Lim says the old one featuring three coloured spears stabbing the company name, which told her that, “despite the company’s own colourful and innovative efforts, their initiatives were hurting themselves more than spurring them forward.” She reckons they really should relaunch themselves in the New Year — an act which would generate “awesome feng shui”… . February 4 marks the beginning of ‘period 8’ in the feng shui calendar, a period of new energy. And in order to benefit from it, people or organisations need to undertake renewal or change after that date. Now there’s an idea…

ET – Wait a Tick

The mayor of a Brazilian town says he had cancelled a planned landing by aliens during an important soccer match last year (The Press, November 24). Elcio Berti said he cancelled the landing of the alien spaceship because he was worried they may abduct one of the Brazillian footballers. Berti, the mayor of Bocaiuva do Sul, claims to be in regular touch with aliens and is preparing a UFO landing pad for them in town.

“Con” Man Speaks Out

It was good to see Australian skeptic Richard Lead in the Dominion Post (September 22) following our conference last year. In a small article the “professional cynic” explained how he has tackled cons, from the Nigerian scam to property investment.

“I was living in Samoa in 1994 when I first saw the Nigerian scams. I used to attend a businessmen’s lunch and would pass the letters around and we would have a good laugh. I later found one of the guys had got taken for $90,000.”

This and similar scams, he said, work by the “Concorde fallacy” — the only chance you have of getting back the money you’ve already invested is to put in more. “They just keep sucking you in and the losses keep getting bigger and bigger. I used to say ‘how could people be so stupid?’. I don’t say that any more. I’ve seen it happen so often.”

He told the paper the hardest part of the job was dealing with people who had lost life savings, something he was not equipped to deal with. “Nothing in my accountant’s training prepared me for people with tears in their eyes because they’ve lost everything.”

The best way to avoid being taken in was to exercise common sense and carefully evaluate everything. “…if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.”

Not a Prayer of a Chance

The biggest scientific experiment on prayer has failed to find any evidence that it helps to heal the sick.

Doctors in the US said that heart patients who were prayed for by groups of stranger recovered from surgery at the same rate as those who were not (Dominion Post, October 17).

The three-year study led by cardiologists from Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina, involved 750 patients in nine hospitals and 12 prayer groups around the world.

The prayer groups included American Christian mothers, nuns, Sufi Muslims, Buddhist monks in Nepal and English doctors and students in Manchester. Prayers were emailed to Jerusalem and placed in the Wailing Wall.

Earlier, less extensive, research had suggested prayer could have a beneficial effect.

The news brought swift reactions. The Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, said “Prayer is not a penny-in-the-slot machine. You can’t just put in a coin and get out a chocolate. This is like setting an exam for God to see if God will pass it or not.”

Red Tape for Health Pills

The Herald reports (December 8) that the $200 million-a-year health supplements business is up in arms over a Government plan to join with Australia to regulate the industry.

Under this plan, all dietary supplements and alternative remedies would be classified as pharmaceuticals and regulated through a new transtasman agency.

New Zealand has about 10,000 complementary and alternative health practitioners. Health Minister Annette King said the move was about quality, public safety and standards. “We require standards about the food we sell… we require standards for pharmaceuticals and medical devices. And one of the hard lessons I learned last year was that the public demanded standards and regulations for complementary healthcare.”

Opponents say New Zealand will lose control of decision-making to Australia, Kiwi dietary supplements firms will be hurt, and customers will have less choice.

Green MP Sue Kedgley and NZ First MP Pita Paraone are upset the Government is including alternative medicines and supplements before the health select committee report is out.

“Slimming Water” the Latest Fad

Forget about cutting out carbs on Atkins or replacing meals with a milkshake — the latest dieting phenomenon to hit the shelves is bottled water which claims to help people lose weight (Rotorua Daily Post, January 13).

Contrex is being marketed as Britain’s first “cosmetic water”, on the basis that it works as a slimming aid. Nestle, its maker, claims that the mineral water contains natural sources of calcium and magnesium which can eliminate toxins, fight fatigue and help people stay in shape. The calcium can also increase the body’s metabolism and improve weight loss, according to Nestle.

Health experts dismissed the idea of a “diet water” as ridiculous. Amanda Wynne of the British Dietetic Association said: “Drinking water will not make you slim, even if it is fortified with calcium and magnesium. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Despite this criticism, industry insiders are predicting that so-called “aquaceuticals” will be the boom dieting products of 2004. The fad started in Japan and hit America last year, with several brands planned for launch in Britain this year.

A spokeswoman for Nestle said, “It is selling like hot cakes. Contrex has been sold in France for years and women there call it the slimming water. You get the minerals you need without putting on weight.”

Other aquaceuticals to go on sale recently include Blue Water, which costs an incredible £11 a litre and claims to improve skin conditions and general wellbeing. It has been developed by an Austrian naturalist, Johann Grander, who says he “removed the negative memories from water and transferred beneficial energy patterns to it”.

Some fans say they feel better simply by sleeping next to a glass of Blue Water at night. Other products have celebrity endorsements, such as the Kabbalah Mountain Spring Water favoured by Madonna. It claims to have been transformed into a “living” water through modern technology and the wisdom of ancient texts used by the Cabbala, a Jewish mysticism.

Lakeland Willow has also been launched as an aquaceutical in the UK. According to its marketing blurb, it contains salicin, a natural painkilling substance found in willow bark.

Another Year goes By…

Vicki Hyde presents the Chair-entity’s report for 2003

It’s been another busy year, mostly working behind the scenes, with the occasional burst into the public arena.

For the second year running, we celebrated Darwin Day, with a birthday cake and Darwin Day lecture in Christchurch. It would be great to see other areas join in to put February 12 on the calendar as a day to celebrate science and humanity. Anyone interested in doing this should contact me for Darwin Day support material and ideas.

The Darwin Day Collection Volume One was published in the US, with a selection of articles from New Zealand skeptics sitting alongside material from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and assorted stellar luminaries. There are plans to put a collection out every couple of years as part of the international Darwin Day activities. Copies are still available from the secretary.

Following on from the discussion at last year’s AGM, we ran a Teaching Critical Thinking Competition, offering a $1000 prize for a one-page teaching resource that could be used by teachers and parents. The competition announcements were picked up by a wide range of educational publications and passed on through email groups; we also thank Jonathan Harper who kindly included posters within a mailout he was sending to schools.

Around 30 entries came in from round the country, with the winning entry dealing with assessing the evidence for the existence of the moa. We are using the entries to develop a kit which we hope to distribute to schools as part of the second competition’s promotional activities, and have applied for NZ Post Community Post support to help with that.

The 2002 AGM proposed that “NZSCICOP petition the House of Representatives for the estab-lishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Civic Crèche Case and the judicial and forensic counselling issues arising therefrom.” Moves to do so had got under way when we were contacted regarding what has been termed the “VIPs’ petition”. The suggestion was that Parliament would find it more difficult to ignore a petition coming from those perceived to be influential members of the community. The committee agreed to put their support behind this initiative, and I signed the VIPs’ petition as Chair of NZCSICOP. We also provided information on the petition and its later expansion, via the website and email alert list.

The petition is very similar to the motion as passed at the 2002 AGM:

“We the undersigned petition the House of Representatives to urge the Government to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry, presided over by a Judge or Judges from outside the New Zealand jurisdiction, to enquire into all aspects of the investigation and legal processes relating to the Christchurch Civic Crèche case. This case is one of great public and professional concern, and raises serious questions about the administration of justice and the working of existing laws, which must be addressed.”

Media contacts continued throughout the year, with requests for television appearances, expert advice and commentary. Among the contacts were Isola Productions, NZ Radio Training School, Bay of Plenty News, Plains FM, Newstalk ZB, and Next magazine. UFOs were a big thing at one stage, with no fewer than four independent contacts in the space of two months.

The National Radio Sunday Supplement provided a useful slot to publicise our concerns. At the beginning of the year I covered problems with homeopathic “vaccines” being sold in Auckland and, interestingly, made contact with the president of the NZ Homeopathic Society, who was equally concerned. Should these vaccines rear their heads again, we’ve agreed to issue a joint release condemning the practice! Another Sunday Supplement concerned the topical issue of the Pan Pharmaceuticals recall, which dealt an all-too-brief blow to the credibility of the supplement industry.

We had a very intense flurry of activity when discovering by accident that the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health had apparently called for submissions on introducing, regulating and integrating CAM care in New Zealand. Despite contacting them fairly regularly over the past couple of years, we hadn’t made it on to their notification list…. With four days to the deadline, we managed to pull together comments and material from researchers worldwide to produce a 30-page submission, and made this available for viewing online.

The website and email alert list continued to be useful in getting information out to members, the media and the general public. As well as the CAM section, we added sections on the Christchurch Civic Crèche petition, magnet therapy, and more information flyers for downloading and printing with more in the pipeline. There is a proposal to provide full sets of the flyers to members for local distribution, and this was discussed at the AGM.

Bravo Awards were distributed as nominations came in, and have been made to Alan Pickmere for sterling work regarding alternative medicine claims in Northland; and Barry Colman for putting his money on the line with his publication of transcripts from the Christchurch Civic Crèche case. I’d encourage you all to keep an eye out for people who deserve a pat on the back as it is good to be able to be positive and, importantly, be seen to be positive.

I’d like to conclude by expressing my strong thanks to Joanna Wojnar, who almost single-handedly pulled the conference together by being our person on the ground. She’s a great example of how one person can make a significant contribution.

All the best,

Vicki Hyde
Chair-entity