Quack fined $12,000; ordered to stop selling fake cancer treatment
Following is a reproduction of a press release from the Queensland Minister for Tourism and Fair Trading, the Honourable Peter Lawlor.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Unregistered health provider ordered to stop misleading cancer patients
A Mackay woman who made misleading and deceptive claims about a mineral supplement has been ordered by the Brisbane Supreme Court to discontinue providing intravenous treatment to cancer patients. Minister for Fair Trading Peter Lawlor said unregistered health provider Jillian Margaret Newlands was caught administering a concoction made from a mixture of citric acid and sodium chlorite to cancer sufferers and claiming the product cured cancer.
“The Office of Fair Trading was alerted to Ms Newland’s activities following a Health Quality Complaints Commission investigation. The Office of Fair Trading sought an injunction under the Fair Trading Act 1989 to prevent her from misleading and deceiving consumers,” Mr Lawlor said.
“Ms Newlands has no formal qualifications as a nurse or naturopath,” Mr Lawlor said. “Ms Newlands went so far as to inject her ‘patients’ with a ‘miracle mineral supplement’ while dishonestly promoting its benefits with no scientific basis for her claims.
The court order obtained by the Office of Fair Trading banned Ms Newlands from administering any substance intravenously and supplying any goods, services or any other substance which has not been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.”
“Ms Newlands was ordered to pay court costs of more than $12,000 and has also been restrained from making any claims she is able to treat, cure, or benefit any person suffering from cancer” he said. “She charged cancer sufferers up to $2000 for treatment services she administered in her home garage and went so far as to advise one cancer patient not to pursue chemotherapy treatment”.
“There was no evidence of any sterile handling techniques or any proper storage of medical utensils and equipment used by Ms Newlands at her home. “This sort of deceptive conduct is completely unacceptable.
If consumers have concerns in regards to their dealings with Jillian Newlands, they should visit their nearest healthcare professional immediately.
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This story begins with an investigation by A Current Affair earlier this year, with the help of our very own Loretta Marron, where she went undercover with a hidden camera. You can watch the video below.
Loretta Marron busts a cancer quack on A Current Affair
News articles of the story today cite evidence from a cancer patient who was told not to seek chemotherapy treatment. This cancer patient is our very own Loretta. In fact, it was her who contacted the QLD Health Complaints Commission and told them to get in touch with A Current Affair for the footage.
Readers of my Zone blog would also be aware that it is illegal in NSW to claim to cure incurable illnesses including cancer, in accordance with the Code of Conduct for Unregistered Practitioners. Perhaps QLD will one day get a similar code, but in the meantime I applaud the hard work and tenacity of Loretta Marron and congratulate her on her continued efforts to protect the vulnerable and sick from opportunistic quacks.
The things that people believe….
Do UFOs really exist?
Probably not.
At least, currently there is not enough compelling evidence to support either their existence or visits to earth from space men. But, this doesn’t stop people believing. In fact, something like four million Americans think they have been abducted by an alien craft and many have abduction insurance.
Last night in Australia on Channel 7, a story aired about the release of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) “X-files”. It seems a little strange to me that this report has only just aired – the files were released some months ago.
In any case, the report consisted of “eye witness accounts” in the form of “actual audio” from air force employees, played over fairly credulous looking UFO footage of space craft flying low over trees, with a powerful searchlight. The doco neglected to reveal that the footage was stock special-effects footage, but nevertheless…
The report also showed a UFO hovering over a level railway crossing in Australia. This photograph was debunked as a fly speeding past the lens many years ago, by our own Steve Roberts. I wonder who did the research for this show…
In any case, our own favourite sceptic, Richard Saunders, (or TRS to his friends and my Mum) was invited onto the Channel 7’s morning show “Sunrise” to discuss the “doco” this morning. Take a look at the clip below. Go Richard!
Regulating the unregistered – a code of conduct for quacks
Have you ever heard of a friend having a bad time with an alternative practitioner? Maybe their acupuncturist left them bruised and battered or their homeopath told them they could cure their incurable disease with an expensive potion, only it wasn’t to be? Maybe it’s happened to you? But what would you do if this did happen to you? Who could you turn to for help or to make a complaint?
For many years, unregistered practitioners such as naturopaths, acupuncturists, reiki practitioners, massage therapists, iridologists and the like, have been without any accountability for selling bogus or dangerous products or services.
In Australia, we have the federally controlled Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) which is responsible for “safeguarding public health and safety in Australia by regulating medicines, medical devices, blood and tissues”. But this does not include unregistered and alternative health practitioners. In NSW, a Code of Conduct for Unregistered Practitioners was released on August 1st, 2008. The code consists of 17 sections, covering such matters as;
practitioners are to provide services in a safe and ethical manner, are not to financially exploit clients and practitioners are required to have a clinical basis for their treatment”.
The code is designed to fill a loophole for the regulation of health providers who are not covered by a registration body, meaning that although the public could lodge a complaint about a practitioner, the regulatory bodies could do little more than slap them on the wrist. Whereas this new legislation means they can be banned from practicing either for a specific period or permanently. The code is administered by the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) and if breached,
the Commission has the power to impose a prohibition order and/or issue a public warning about the practitioner and their services. A prohibition order bans a practitioner from providing health services, or places conditions on their provision of health services, for a specified period or permanently. It is a criminal offence to breach the order”.
But not every state in Australia has such a code for alternative health practitioners. (One wonders if Queensland is exempt since there seems to be so much woo in this state). For example South Australia (SA) does not, but a parliamentary inquiry is currently underway which plans to change this. Labour MP Trish White set-up a Social Development Committee inquiry in 2007. Its brief was to investigate “bogus, unregistered and deregistered health practitioners” and to develop a way to regulate the growing number of people making false claims about their ability to cure. White hopes the inquiry will expose the charlatans and work out ways to stop them popping up again under different names.
The current inquiry is spearheaded by the state head of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), Dr Peter Ford, the proposal is modelled on the NSW code. The impetus for the introduction of such a code came from Dr Ford as a mechanism for regulating quacks. Dr Ford told the inquiry that the unregulated practitioners are a “relative risk to patient health and have enjoyed immunity and lack of scrutiny from the legal and regulatory authorities which apply to the medical profession”.
In his submission about “bogus” doctors, he highlights colonic irrigation, thermography, subluxation and cancer cures as some of the more dangerous alternative medicine treatments. AS previously mentioned on Dr Rachie Reports, colonic irrigation can result in tearing of the colon and septicemia, or chronic depletion of electrolytes and death.
Thermography is a tool promoted as a way to detect breast cancer, but the AMA says it is unreliable, missing known cancers and diagnosing non-existent cancers – and further it is expensive. Chiropractic subluxations or spinal problems, can lead to other health complaints. The AMA is concerned about children being subjected to unnecessary X-rays for what is a controversial diagnosis and treatment (see here for more information). Regular listeners to Dr Rachie will remember that chiropractic manipulation has lead to death from tearing of arteries in the neck.
Dr Ford also cites fanciful claims of cancer cures as particularly insidious. And as is evidenced by some of the complaints currently being heard as part of the inquiry, it seems this is an urgent inclusion. He also cited other therapies, such as alternative massage therapies, Vega testing and coffee or chamomile enemas are “untested and potentially harmful”. Vega testing is as food allergy test, reminscent of alternative hair analysis, which claims to identify different food allergies and then prescribes you a special diet.
QuackWatch describes the Vega test as “…used to diagnose nonexistent health problems, select inappropriate treatment, and defraud insurance companies. The practitioners who use them are either delusional, dishonest, or both. These devices should be confiscated and the practitioners who use them should be prosecuted”.
Recently an article appeared in the local Adelaide press about a health practitioner treating cancer sufferers with massage, home-made remedies, and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). The Favira Clinic, run by “miracle worker” Elvira Brunt uses a type of massage to change the way blood flows through the body, and this is supposed to cure terminal illnesses. Her supporters call her a gifted healer who can cure cancer. Her detractors have told a parliamentary committee that she takes money from vulnerable people, charging hundreds of dollars for a few precious minutes, paid in cash, with no receipt.
The AMA claims that she tried to convince the parents of a young leukemia victim to delay giving her treatment. The girls’ GP eventually told the committee the delays had a devastating effect;
….the interventions by the bogus practitioner served only to reduce the opportunity of giving the girl the best chance of a cure…..and when the cure could not be achieved she was deprived of optimal palliative care”.
Even more bizarre, Brunt apparently advised the girl’s father to give her the aforementioned KFC to get her kidneys functioning properly. The girl has since died. Her GP said; “People battling serious or terminal illnesses can be desperate and will sometimes hand over large amounts of money for quite useless treatments. We would like to think that the public is protected from such charlatans”.
Also reported to the inquiry is a man known as Lubo Bitelco who is alleged to have promised a woman a “50 percent” cure for cancer through a technique known as vaginal blowing, during which she had to move up and down on the bed saying “oh boy!”
In NSW, making claims of curing cancer or other terminal illnesses was outlawed in August 2008 with the introduction of the code. According to section 5, part 1 of the code; “A health practitioner must not hold himself or herself out as qualified, able or willing to cure cancer and other terminal illnesses”.
Also according to section 17 of the Code, Health Practitioners (with some exceptions such as the ambulance service and private hospitals) must display the Code and information about the way in which clients may make a complaint to the HCCC if necessary. These documents are available as easily downloadable pdfs from the Department of Health and the HCCC websites.
I am currently making enquiries as to whether it is an offence if the code is not displayed. If this is the case, it should make for an interesting visit to the Mind body Wallet festival at the end of this month, where all manner of fantastical woo is on display, with only the NSW department of health and the TGA are conspicuous by their absence.
I am personally very pleased to see the code introduced and hope that SA expect something similar. One expects Dr Peter Ford is not going to let these “wide-ranging ratbags” get off the hook that easily. He is a very active campaigner for science based medicine and features regularly on local ABC radio in SA.
What interested me most about the code is how it will be implemented. For example, can I dob in a website that claims to treat cancer with oxygen, water, sunlight and sleep? In accordance with Section 5,
health practitioners are not to make claims to cure serious illnesses”
including cancer, but do they actually have to state the word “cure” in their promotional material? What if they just infer they can cure an illness?
I was particularly interested in Section 12 which states that health practitioners are not to misinform their clients. Part 2 states that a health practitioner must provide truthful information to his or her qualifications, training or professional affiliations if asked. So, does this mean the end for people posing as doctors with bogus or on-line PhDs? One can only hope.
Section 3 is also interesting and has potentially far reaching consequences.
A health practitioner must not make claims about the efficacy of treatment or services if the claims cannot be substantiated”.
Sounds like curtains for KFC and “water can cure incurable diseases”. I will be very interested to see what impact the code has on alternative and unregistered practitioners in NSW.
When two worlds collide, the YAS and Skeptic Zone together at last?
What will happen when the YAS and the Skeptic Zone finally meet?
Will they all spontaneously combust?
Will their creative energies combine to create a super massive black hole?
Will it come to pass that the age-old Melbourne/Sydney rivalry can never be resolved?
Or will the Sydney team finally discover that Jack Scanlan is in fact a retired professor of archeaology moonlighting as a 17 year old genius in an TIKTAALIK hoodie?
Dave the Happy Singer; unable to contain his excitement at the thought of visiting Melbourne in May
Find out soon, as some representatives from the Skeptic Zone plan to make the trek to Melbourne in May.
This includes Richard Saunders and myself, but also Kylie Sturgess all the way from Perth, plus our very good friend and regular special guest, Dave the Happy Singer.
We are planning to mosey down for some interviews, a talk or two, and a few beers with our very good friends, the YAS. Not forgetting of course, Joel Birch, Catherine Donaldson, and Matt from ilikeportello blogspot, plus whoever else we have met along the way!
We need some help however. Richard and I would like to give a double-header talk, but we need advice on a venue. Can you help? Leave a comment if you can.
Richard does a talk entitled “Scepticism 101” and mine is “Dr Rachie Reports; adventures of a scientist in an alternative medicine world“. (We anticipate we will probably be in town for a weekend in May).
Oh, and if you have a few extra dollars floating around just aching for a good cause, we would sincerely appreciate help with raising funds for our plane tickets. Even if you can chuck 20 bucks our way, it all helps a group of dedicated volunteers, doing our best to spread the word of science and reason. (There’s a paypal button on our website).
So hold on to your hats, tell your friends, and watch out Melbourne!
Psst! I can’t wait to meet @jacksmother
More anti-vax nonsense from potty mouthed Jenny McCarthy
This week an interview with Jenny McCarthy was published in Time Magazine.
No surprises here, she continues to bang on about the link between autism and vaccination, despite there being no scientific evidence.
But science is not something that seems to bother Jenny, ex-Playboy model, bit-actress and now best selling author (*shudder*). You see, she possess what she terms a “Mommy instinct” and this means she knows all, even more than all the doctors and scientists of this world.
What surprised me about this holier than though “Mommy” was her repeated dropping of the “F” bomb throughout the interview. Not very “Mommy”-like in my opinion. One would have thought it appropriate to be on your best behaviour should the respectable Time Magazine come knocking.
I do believe sadly it’s going to take some diseases coming back to realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it’s their f___ing fault that the diseases are coming back. They’re making a product that’s s___. If you give us a safe vaccine, we’ll use it. It shouldn’t be polio versus autism.
Wash your mouth out with soap young lady. Mind you, I thought Time let her get away with some pretty crazy claims without challenging them.
Most people who blame autism on vaccines point to the mercury in the shots, yet mercury has been removed from most vaccines and autism rates continue to climb.
We don’t believe it’s only the mercury. Aluminum and other toxins also play a role. The viruses in the vaccines themselves can be causing it, too.
You can read the entire interview here.
Scientists and defenders of reason have been debunking Jenny’s misinformed nonsense for some time now. The latest installment being the “Jenny McCarthy Body Count” website.
The website will publish the total number of vaccine preventable illnesses and vaccine preventable deaths that have happened since June 2007 when she began publicly speaking out against vaccines.
You can also visit stopjenny.com for more information about the scaremongering continued by this potty-mouthed mommy.
Tim Minchin storms the Enmore Theatre
Tim Minchin rocks.
I had the pleasure of seeing Tim Minchin last night, in his new show, “Ready for this?”. We had second row seats, which meant we almost got hit by a flying fan when he kicked it off stage!
Tim burst onto the stage with a song about “who needs a band anyway?” then jumped straight onto the grand piano, for a 2 hour show.
Highlights included a song he described as being about prejudice, the chorus containing the letters, N, E, G, R, G, I, recited. After about 3 choruses, he revealed the word as “Ginger” much to the great amusement of the audience. This of course turned in Ginga, then Ranga and every other incarnation of red-headed people. The chorus melded into; “only a ginga can call another ginga a ginga”.
Scattered throughout the performance were references to science and scepticism. Of course, Tim is well known for his sceptical outlook.
During the guest performance for “Bears don’t dig on dancing” by a competition winner, he asked the pharmacy worker what was his favourite non-evidence based product was. But before the kid dressed in a full body beat suit had a chance to answer, Tim fired back; “That was a big pause (paws)”.
The highlight for me was definitely the 9 minute beat poem, “Storm” a tale of a North London dinner pary where Tim meets a hippie who dismisses science for all things woo. Sitting next to Richard, I almost burst during this number. Pure brilliance.
I urge you to catch Tim on the remainder of his Australian tour, if you haven’t yet.
Science and the Catholic Church – like ships passing in the night.
The year 2008 marked 25 years of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) research since the discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 1993. It also marked the year that the discovery of HIV was recognised with a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Despite rapid advancements in the past decades, with the development of anti-retroviral drugs meaning HIV is no longer a death sentence, and new vaccine technologies providing hope for the developing world, it appears the Catholic Church remains in the dark.
This week, the church once again demonstrated their detachment from science and reality when Pope Benedict proclaimed that the “use of condoms could actually increase the HIV epidemic”. The Pope initially told reporters flying with him to Cameroon that AIDS was “a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problem”.
However, Benedict holds the dubious honour of not being the first Pope to spread such misinformation. As early as 1990, Pope John Paul described condoms as “a sin in any circumstances”, comments which have since been attributed to the worsening of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. As a solution to tackle the AIDS epidemic, he offered marital fidelity and sexual abstinence, the position continued by the Catholic church to this day.
For many, statements made by Pope John that day in 1990 in Tanzania, sentenced millions of Africans to death. Unabashed, he repeated the same message time and again as he moved on to neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi, countries then suffering an even higher HIV infection rate.
An epidemic of exponential proportions.
After the papal visit of 1990, the HIV pandemic gathered pace. By 2010, it is estimated, there will be 50 million orphaned children in sub-Saharan Africa, 18 million of whose parents will have died from AIDS or AIDS-related illnesses. Today, more than 28 per cent of African children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. In 1990, at the time of the Pope’s visit to Tanzania, the figure was 2 per cent.
Since HIV was first photographed by a group of French researchers back in 1993, 22 million people have died and 40 million are HIV-infected – the vast majority in Africa. In 2007, 2.7 million individuals became newly infected with HIV-1, and 2 million AIDS deaths occurred. Regrettably, half of all people who are infected with HIV acquire the infection before the age of 25 years, and are killed by AIDS before they turn 35. More than 95 per cent of new HIV-1 infections arise in low and middle income nations, populations least likely to have access to anti-retroviral therapy.
Condoms are 98-99 % effective against the transmission of HIV.
Regardless of what the Catholic Church has to say on the issue, science tells us that condoms are a very effective way of preventing HIV infection.
The WHO advises; “Condoms can prevent sexually transmitted infections including HIV in 98-99 per cent of cases, when consistently and correctly used. Therefore, it is the most effective strategy available to protect from HIV…With consistent condom use, the HIV infection rate among uninfected partners in families where one partner is infected with HIV and the other is not, can be reduced to less than 1 percent per year.”
Luc Montagnier, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Harald zur Hausen after delivering their Nobel Lectures at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, 7 December 2008.
In December 2008, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded for two discoveries, half for the human papilloma virus which causes cervical cancer, and the other for the discovery of the virus which causes AIDS, HIV. For the isolated and identification of the HIV virus, the Nobel was given to the French team of Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.
Notably overlooked, were the American scientists also involved in the discovery, headed by Robert Gallo. To some observers, it is no surprise that Gallo and his team were overlooked for the prestigious prize. Allegations of fraud, lies and misconduct surround the path to one of the biggest scientific discoveries of this century.
Controversy surrounding the discovery of HIV.
The story begins in June 1981, when physicians in New York and California reported unusual clusters of rare diseases in previously healthy gay men, notably Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and a rare form of cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma. The first cases of AIDS were described in homosexual men in the US in 1981 [1]. The syndrome was first known as the “4Hs” for homosexuals, Haitians, hemophiliacs and heroin users as a way of describing high risk groups.
For nearly two years, the cause of AIDS remained elusive; the scientific community was largely baffled, lacking good leads for developing therapies or even a diagnostic test.
To be able to identify the virus, scientists had to be able to grow it in culture dishes. Several years earlier, a research group at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, lead by the respected cancer researcher, Robert C. Gallo had developed a method for growing T-helper cells in culture, the immune cells targeted and killed by HIV. Even so, Gallo’s group and a rival group in France at the Pasteur Institute, lead by Luc Montagnier were having problems getting enough material from their cultures to identify the virus. Each group had isolated tissue from an AIDS patient; the French group from the lymph nodes of Frederic Brugiere, a French fashion designer with AIDS. Gallo’s team had their own virus samples, but failed to get it to replicate sufficiently, so Gallo asked Montagnier’s for some of his virus to which Montagnier agreed. It is not uncommon for scientists to “gift” cells and other biological material for the benefit of advancing research.
The virus which causes AIDS was originally named LAV and HTLV-III.
In 1983, Montagnier’s team finally isolated the virus we now call HIV-1 and called it lymphadenopathy associated virus (LAV). On 20 May
HIV paticles bud from a T-helper cell. Image: CDC.
1983, the discovery was published in Science. The resp0nse from the scientific community was underwhelming.
That was, until a year later, on 4 May 1984, when Gallo’s team reported that they too had discovered the virus that causes AIDS, again in Science. His team called its virus HTLV-III, the acronym for human T-cell leukaemia/lymphoma virus type III.
With the publication of Gallo’s paper, suddenly people began to take notice. Whilst both teams knew they were looking for a retrovirus, indicated by the presence of the enzyme, known as reverse transcriptase, necessary for the replication of these viruses, Gallo was convinced he would find a particular type of retrovirus similar to the HTLVs he had previously discovered. Now we know of many types of retroviruses, but in 1982, only one was known to infect humans and that was HTLV.
But Gallo made a crucial mistake; HTLV-1 has been associated with a rare form of cancer and caused T-cells to grow out of control (for a review of this and HTLV-II, see a review by Robert Gallo here). This new virus, which was leading to AIDS did the polar opposite, it was destroying T-cells. However, Gallo was a charismatic and high profile researcher with a spotless reputation, so when Montagnier announced the virus associated with AIDS was an as yet, unseen type of retrovirus, nobody took much notice.
A critical year of research wasted.
An entire year lapsed between the publication of the French team’s discovery and recognition by the scientific community that the cause of AIDS had been found, which was heralded with Gallo’s publication in Science. An entire year in which a diagnostic test could have been developed, potentially preventing the infection with HIV of thousands of hemopheliacs and blood transfusion patients.
So, the race was now on to develop a diagnostic test to detect HIV in blood and blood products. By this time, scientists around the world were extracting tissue from AIDS patients and growing plenty of virus – they had got better at the technique. It became clear that viruses extracted from individual patients varied greatly in their sequence, or series of nucleotides.
HIV is a single stranded RNA virus and is replicated by an enzyme known as reverse transcriptase. This enzyme makes many mistakes when copying HIV leading to great variability between copies. Scientists had learned to expect between 10 and 20 per cent variability between viruses, even from within the same patient. So, it came as a surprise to many in the scientific community, that when Gallo announced the discovery of “his” virus, 12 months after Montagnier, it only differed by approximately 2 per cent. This lead to the possibility that Gallo had either deliberately used the French virus in his studies since it had been growing well (although he denies this) or that the French virus had somehow contaminated his own cultures.
Was the American virus really the French virus?
But now there were also issues of money and patents coming from a test for HIV developed and patented by Gallo’s team on the back of the HTLV-III discovery. Although this was settled out of court in March 1987, the question arises whether in the light of the viruses having originated from France, the Pasteur Institute deserved to have profited exclusively from the test (not least since the French team had applied for a patent on the test in the US four months before Gallo).
The out-of-court agreement, announced jointly by French prime minister Jacques Chirac and US president Ronald Reagan, stipulated that each of the two parties had equal rights to claim priority concerning detection and isolation of the virus, and Gallo and Montagnier would henceforth be recognised as the “co-discoverers” of HIV – a stipulation also included in a Chronology of AIDS research co-authored by the two in Nature on 2 April 1987.
Who really discovered the HIV virus?
In 1989, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer, John Crewdson published an investigative report in the Chicago Tribune which questioned whether Gallo’s laboratory had deliberately used the French virus rather than growing their own. This led to National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Congressional investigations that ultimately cleared Gallo’s group from any wrongdoing. However, years and many rumours later, in June 1991, Gallo finally admitted that the AIDS virus he had “discovered” in 1984 really came from the Pasteur Institute. In a letter to the journal Nature in 1991 admitting that the crucial sample had come from France, Gallo said that it appeared to have come from contamination of his cultures by the French virus.
The human tragedy is, that during the period of court cases and government intervention, many good research hours which could have been spent on developing a diagnostic test and hence saving the lives of thousands of haemopheliacs and blood transfusion patients, were wasted.
Many accounts have been written describing the conduct of Robert Gallo during this time and they do not make for flattering reading. Whilst there is no doubt that he did, and continues to do good virology science, his conduct surrounding the discovery, obviously had a big effect on him being overlooked in December for the prize. Some say Robert Gallo was robbed of the Noel Prize. Whilst The Nobel citation mentions Gallo’s contributions, it settles the dispute once and for all by declaring the French duo to be the true discoverers of the virus.
This is not to detract from the hard work continued by Robert Gallo, now the director of the Institute of Human Virology.
Meanwhile scientifiic endeavour, no matter how competitive, and the Catholic Church seem to pass like ships in the night. Read more...
I am cartoon science superhero, WOoT!
(Click on image for better resolution)
My friend Phillip Quinn has been very busy working on cartoons of the science show I do with Richard Saunders named, Mystery Investigators. We are so impressed with his work. And doesn’t he make me look right sexy and smart in this, the latest installment?
Cheers Phillip. You are BRILLIANT!
Hat full of bullshit.
This post will be an on-going collection of some of the claims made in the promotional material produced by Lifewave.
The title refers to my exclamation after having read the quote below, it sounded to me like someone had put a whole lot of bullshit in a hat and pulled out words at random.
Hold onto your seats folks. This will shock and amaze you. You couldn’t make this stuff up (well maybe you could, maybe they did?).
Let’s begin.
1) From Swift, May 27th, 2005. James Randi’s blog on the JREF. The following is an excerpt from an explanation of how Lifewave patches work.
“..More specifically what happens is that the human magnetic field passes through the patches, and this field causes the organic array inside of the patches to begin to vibrate (like an antenna). This is how the resonant energy transfer affects the frequency modulation in the human energy field”.
Pardon?
I will continue to update this post as I find more nuggets on the internet. I assure you readers, this will be fun and just a little bit scary…
Please note: if you come across some Lifewave gold, email or message me. I’ll happily add it.
Enjoy!
Request to pharmacists to stop selling ear candles reaches the mainstream media
Last week, is an effort to curb the explosion of pseudoscience in Australian pharmacies, Richard Saunders and myself wrote an open letter to Australian pharmacists.
In the letter, we pointed out that pharmacies sell a growing number of products for which there is little or no scientific evidence of efficacy. Calling them “alternative” does not make them work. Examples include homeopathic preparations, magnetic pain relief devices, detox programmes, dodgy weight loss products and ear candles. Such products commonly appear in a “Natural Medicine” section of pharmacies but are sometimes displayed alongside real medicines whose benefits are scientifically proven.
With respect to ear candles, we cited peer reviewed studies reporting serious injuries from ear candles, including temporary hearing loss, burns, ear canals blocked by dripping wax and punctured ear drums.
“Ear candling is one of those CAM modalities that clearly does more harm than good… its mechanism of action is first implausible and second, demonstrably wrong… in my view, therefore, it should be banned.” Edzard Ersnt.
We were very pleased to see our open letter was picked up by medindia.net.
You can find a link to the full letter here. Thank you also to our friend Lorreta Maron who got the letter posted on a pharmacists’ website.
