28 March 2011 by Erik Davis
Last year, I took a look at a product called ProstaCaid, which bills itself as “a comprehensive prostate formula that targets prostate cancer and promotes healthy prostate cells.” The product caught my eye after its creator tweeted about “Research on new prostate formula that naturally combats #prostatecancer!” but when I checked the data it came [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, British Columbia, Canada, Health, Health Canada Approves..., Health Policy, Medicinal Advertising, Skepticism14 Comments
24 January 2011 by Erik Davis
I came down with a nasty cold before the holidays – so bad that I briefly thought I had the flu, and was cursing myself for having waited so long to get the flu shot, which I’d received just before the symptoms began. Amidst all the sniffling and groaning and self-pitying, it occurred to me [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Diet and Nutrition, Health, Medical Conditions, Medicinal Advertising, Skepticism, Vaccines27 Comments
29 November 2010 by Mitchell Gerskup
This will probably be my last year attending the Whole Life Expo. Last year, I had a lot of fun, took some great photos, tried some foods (some great; some not-so great) and learned a lot about the field of alternative health and its practitioners. This year, if I had to sum up my experience [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Diet and Nutrition, Events, Medicinal Advertising, Ontario, Pseudoscience6 Comments
31 October 2010 by Scott Gavura
Note: The following is a summary of my Skepticamp Toronto 2010 presentation. I’ve been practicing pharmacy for over 15 years, and it didn’t take me long to realize after I started working that there was a completely different standard for safety and efficacy for herbal preparations and other supplements. That is, they were largely unregulated. [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Featured, Health Policy, Medicinal Advertising5 Comments
02 September 2010 by Kim Hebert
The phrase “scientifically proven effective” is thrown around a lot in the marketing world. But in the case of a product making a health claim, what value is there in such a statement? One might reasonably think it means the vast body of scientific literature supports the treatment. But what about when it means that [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health Policy, Medicinal Advertising4 Comments
09 August 2010 by Erik Davis
I hope you all caught Scott’s excellent post over at Science Based Medicine last week, comparing the regulatory regimes for natural health products in Canada and the US. This article will pick up one of his points — the weak enforcement of fraudulent health claims — and summarize some investigations I’ve conducted over the last [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Health, Health Policy, Medicinal Advertising, Skepticism8 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, Skepticism23 Comments
15 July 2010 by Kim Hebert
Perhaps Canada AM’s Consumer Alert department needs more meta-awareness, as Canada AM yesterday featured Toronto homeopath Bryce Wylde promoting a “natural first aid kit” for the summer as a “special submission”. The video can be seen here. For those who aren’t familiar, Canada AM is a morning infotainment program. Though they are associated with CTV [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Medicinal Advertising, Ontario26 Comments
24 February 2010 by Jonathan Abrams
Now should be a time to get excited and to be proud, we’re hosting the Olympics! Unfortunately, the games have been tainted for me due to their association with Cold-fX. Cold-fX is a pill manufactured and marketed by Afexa Life Sciences (formerly CV Technologies) to “help reduce colds and flu”. It’s the official cold and [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Medicinal Advertising, Medicine, Science4 Comments
30 January 2010 by Scott Gavura
On January 30, protesters gathered outside outside pharmacies across the United Kingdom and Australia, took massive overdoses of homeopathic remedies … and nothing happened. The event, designed to draw attention to the Alliance Boots pharmacy chain for selling homeopathic “remedies” in pharmacies, was the brainchild of the Merseyside Skeptics Society. Called the 10:23 campaign (the [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Medicinal Advertising, Skepticism2 Comments
