Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Edzard Ernst, has pointed out a rather “interesting” paper that has been written by a German child/adolescent psychiatrist and homeopathic physician, Michael Hartmann. Prof Ernst points it out, not because he thinks it is good, but because despite having a string of letters after his name (MD, PhD, FMedSci, FSB, FRCP, FRCPEd), he does not understand a word … Read more
So here is the story (I’ve stolen the following text from the Wikipedia page all about this) … on 19 February 2010, when the multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International filed a complaint against Uruguay.[1] The company complains that Uruguay’s anti-smoking legislation devalues its cigarette trademarks and investments in the country and is suing Uruguay for compensation under the bilateral … Read more
The Liverpool Echo reports the following bit of good news … Liverpool health bosses are spending £30,000 a year of taxpayers’ money on treatment the NHS admits does not work. The Good Thinking Society, a pro-science charity, threatened the Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) with legal action over its funding for homeopathy. The organisation has … Read more
My Father had colon cancer, my grandfather had colon cancer, my great-grandfather had colon cancer (are you seeing a pattern here yet?), so if you have a family history like this then please keep reading. Now here is the challenge, colorectal cancer can be present for several years before symptoms develop, and by the time … Read more
Stephanie Messenger, an anti-vaccine advocate who truly believes that giving your kids Measles is the best approach, published a book on Amazon entitled “Melanie’s Marvelous Measles”. In this she advances the following absurd idea … Melanie’s Marvelous Measles was written to educate children on the benefits of having measles and how you can heal from … Read more
Harriet Hall, the skeptic-doc, writes over on Science Based Medicine a fabulous article all about why people ignore the facts and instead buy into absurd ideas when it comes to making decisions that can potentially be the wrong side of the line between life and death. (Side note: she is a fascinating person, not only is she … Read more