24 August 2012 by Dianne Sousa
Some time ago, our resident pharmacist asked the question “Is there anything the Natural Health Products Directorate won’t approve?” In that post there was a short list of some of the products Health Canada has allowed on the market, including homeopathic insulin and chloroform. Unfortunately, these products are not peculiarities. I’ve made it a habit [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Health, Health Policy, Medicine, Skepticism1 Comment
10 February 2012 by John Underhay
It is difficult to determine the number of people who use Complementary and Alternative treatments. CAM practitioners and supporters do their best to make the numbers as high as possible so they can make the argument that the public demands their services. One of the methods they use to inflate the numbers is to include [...]
Posted in Medicine9 Comments
27 January 2012 by Richelle McCullough
While doing some digging into the quackery of a local acupuncturist, I came across a sentiment that I found more than usually appalling. In her story of why she became an acupuncturist, she tells a melodramatic tale about a positive Pap smear test result that changed her life*. There’s all the usual makings of an [...]
Posted in Alberta, Alternative Medicine, Health, Medicine, Skepticism, Vaccines21 Comments
06 January 2012 by Scott Gavura
Generic drugs are popular in Canada, with over $22 billion in sales and 57% of prescriptions by volume. And more generics are on the way. Lipitor, one of the most popular Canadian prescription drugs, recently lost patent protection. And more blockbusters will lose their patent protection over the next few years. It’s been called a [...]
Posted in Health, Health Policy, Medicine, ScienceComments Off
12 December 2011 by Michael Kruse
The process of skepticism and scientific inquiry, it has become very apparent to me, requires constant learning and re-evaluation of one’s unfounded beliefs. My own personal journey has been one that came from a position of simplistic certainly about the world and has resulted in a necessary embrace of uncertainty and a probabilistic understanding of [...]
Posted in Medicine, Skepticism15 Comments
09 December 2011 by Michael Kruse
On November 29th, 2011, the Council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons voted to accept their new revision of the policy on Complementary/Alternative Medicine, a policy that has undergone revision with community consultation over the past two years. Skeptics at the Centre For Inquiry’s Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism, after celebrating a win described here, [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health Policy, Medicine, Ontario, SkepticismComments Off
23 November 2011 by Michael Kruse
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario are poised to vote on the new revision to the Complementary/Alternative Medicine policy that has been under review for the past several years. The new revision sports a name change and other clarifications that are generally good, however, the restrictions put on doctors to offer their opinion on [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Medicine, Ontario3 Comments
24 May 2011 by Erik Davis
Here at Skeptic North, we’ve often been a sharp critic of those herbal remedies that are unable to withstand the scrutiny of science. Yet nature does indeed house many pharmacologically active compounds, and it stands to reason that some of them will have medicinal value. So today, we’re going to turn the tables and look [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Medicine, Skepticism16 Comments
03 September 2010 by Michael Kruse
People trust their doctors. This recent Rasmussen poll from the US described 79% of the population trusting their doctor. This trust, for most of us, translates into an unquestioning acceptance, at least for most common interventions, of the treatment suggested by our doctor. We take the prescription, fill it, and expect to feel better afterward. Rarely do we [...]
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
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
