Just a few days before Andrew Wakefield appears before the GMC disciplinary body on charges of misconduct, a front page article in the Observer makes fresh claims of links between the MMR vaccine and autism. In a separate interview in the same newspaper, Dr Wakefield says that he ‘told the truth all along’. He rather remarkably compares himself with Vaclav Havel, ‘As Vaclav Havel once said: “Follow the man who [read more…]
Iatrogenesis is not a concept that is confined to quackery, but like most of the words in my Quack Words series it tends to show up more often than not on quack web sites and so can be a good quackometer word. Iatrogenic illness covers the concept of harm having been done by the healer. Harm could come from many quarters including mistakes in diagnosis or treatment, professional negligence, adverse [read more…]
A few weeks ago, I pointed out that some of the science on the Powerwatch site appeared to be significantly less than convincing about the link between mobiles, WiFi and ill health. I also pointed out that Powerwatch had a very close relationship with another company called EMFields.org. Basically, both companies domains were registered to Alistair Philips of Powerwatch. I was concerned that the commercial interests of selling anti-EMR gear [read more…]
I have just installed a new tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site. There is no need to leave the quackometer to see the web sites I am talking about. You can see excerpts of Wikipedia articles, if I can’t find real references for what I am talking about, and quickly see any videos I link too. Sometimes Snap Shots [read more…]
As my own personal tribute to Homeopathy Awareness Week, and as promised in my last post, I would like to critique a paper that has appeared in this Summer’s edition of the journal, Homeopathy in Practice. The article is entitled “Hormesis, epitaxy, the structure of liquid water, and the science of homeopathy” and is by Domenico Mastrangelo. The paper has appeared elsewhere but is obviously so important that HiP sees [read more…]
Sue Young, homeopath, writer, historian, mother and a daughter, had a bit of a shock last week when a ‘murder’ of quack-busters descended on what used to be her quiet blog about her homeopathy practice. The reason was that she had written a rather topsy turvy piece about how nasty old scientist David Colquhoun FRS had picked on a little herbalist and used a QC to silence her. We know [read more…]
Originally posted for World Homeopathy Awareness Week, I thought this would be worth bumping up for Homeopathy Awareness Week 2007 (14-21st June), organised by the Society of Homeopaths. So much awareness! You would have thought someone has actually proved there was something in it. Anyway… This blog entry is really for all you homeopathists taking part in the big event of the year. Starting on the 1oth of April, World [read more…]
As promised, the first of a number of small improvements to the site. If you are one of those few people that actually read my musings in the blog, you can now subscribe to an email alert. You will receive an email when something is updated on the blog. Better than watching girls squabble on Big Brother. Just about. To subscribe, just type your email address into the box on [read more…]
In this story, a supplement industry spokesperson resorts to Creationist ‘Science’ for their evidence to support the ‘crucial’ nature of supplement pills, shows how we should eat like Inuits, without the messy business of catching fish (or dying young), and has a pop at one of the UK’s most respected academics when he dares to point out some herbal gobbledegook. A quackometer refrain is that where you find people saying [read more…]
As you can see, the Quackometer has had a makeover. This is the first in a series of improvements I hope to make in the next few months. Please bear with me as I iron out the problems. I do not have access to hoards of testing monkeys to get this site right. Don’t hesitate to get in contact if you spot a problem or can think of a way [read more…]
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