03 September 2010 by Chris Hebbern
The bed bug resurgence Bed bugs, Cimex lectularius, have been infesting human habitations for thousands of years. About the size of an apple seed, the bugs can hide in electronics, such as radios, in drawers, in and under furniture, behind baseboards, under loose wallpaper, behind paintings and posters, in small cracks and in the curtains. They [...]
Posted in Canada, Critical Thinking, Health, Logic and Fallacies, Media, Medical Conditions, Ontario, Probability and Statistics, Science, Skepticism12 Comments
05 August 2010 by Erik Davis
Against my more rational urges, I recently joined Twitter. After all, I’m blogging now, so it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. I signed on, added a little profile, linked it to Skeptic North, and started following a few people. Tweeted once, then again, and then once more. I was [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Medical Conditions, Medicinal Advertising, Medicine, Skepticism26 Comments
17 June 2010 by Erik Davis
I’ve come to expect robust skeptical discussion in online forums like this one, but I was encouraged last week to witness some of it “in the field”, as an anthropologist might say. I was doing my regular morning grade school drop-off, when I chanced to overhear a debate between my son’s kindergarten teacher and the [...]
Posted in Canada, Critical Thinking, Health, Health Policy, Medical Conditions, Ontario, Probability and Statistics, Science, Skepticism20 Comments
12 April 2010 by Kennedy Goodkey
Happy World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW) everyone! Homeopaths are once again holding a massive, week-long publicity campaign to raise awareness for their practice. So, many Skeptic North contributors and skeptical activists have also committed to raising awareness of homeopathy. I’m not going to get into the details of homeopathy, rather I am going to give [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Logic and Fallacies, Medical Conditions, SkepticismComments Off
13 January 2010 by Kim Hebert
I came upon the subject of prolotherapy almost a year ago when I was still in school studying occupational therapy. I had a patient with subluxation of the shoulder – a common side effect in stroke where the weight of the arm without appropriate muscle tone pulls the shoulder joint out of alignment – and [...]
Posted in Critical Thinking, Health, Medical Conditions, Medicinal Advertising36 Comments
24 November 2009 by Kim Hebert
I often hear about relaxation techniques in pop psychology. We also discussed them in the mental health section of our Occupational Therapy (OT) curriculum when we explored anxiety. But are they effective and science-based?
Posted in Health, Medical ConditionsComments Off
20 October 2009 by Scott Gavura
Next week the antivaccination group AutismOne will be delivering a two day conference at the University of Toronto. “Changing the Course of Autism In Canada” [PDF] has been a hot topic in the blogosphere for past several weeks. Why so controversial? AutismOne propagates fictions about the supposed links between vaccines and autism (there isn’t one) [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Medical Conditions, Ontario1 Comment
30 September 2009 by Scott Gavura
Providing different viewpoints on a issue is an important component of sound political or social policy study. But when it comes to stories about science, “telling both sides” can be dangerous and even harmful. Canada’s leading women’s magazine, Chatelaine, illustrates the problems of this approach in their recurring series, Two Views, where “Traditional and alternative [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Diet and Nutrition, Health, Medical Conditions1 Comment
Crack Your Back instead of a Vial of Vaccine?
Toronto Media, false balance, and the lack of evidence for claims about MIA vet John Hartley Robertson
How Western journalists in Vietnam and POW NGOs were not fooled by tales of MIA Vet back from the dead
Did a Canadian filmmaker find a left behind Vietnam vet or did credulous Toronto media give new life to an old scam?
How I cured my gout without medication
