16 January 2012 by Kim Hebert
Last January, Marketplace took on homeopathy, a frequent topic among skeptical circles — for good reason. This past Friday they looked into Cold-Fx with somewhat more mixed results. On the positive side, they correctly point out a relatively major concern with natural health products (other than the glaring lack of evidence for efficacy) — poor [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Health, Media, Reviews3 Comments
10 January 2012 by Ethan Clow
A few weeks ago I talked about a strange hockey-skepticism convergence on Radio Freethinker. That convergence of course is about the goaltender for the Montreal Canadiens in particular. Carry Price, the BC born goalie who currently plays for the Montreal Canadiens is a spokesperson for the homeopathic product Oscillococcinum produced by the Boiron company in [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Media, Medicinal Advertising, Quebec, Skepticism6 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, Science0 Comments
15 December 2011 by Paul Ingraham
This Monday, The Globe and Mail offered some particularly shabby fitness advice, with an even higher myth content and lower science concentration than usual. Kathleen Trotter, a personal trainer, had some advice for a reader who asked: I am an avid cyclist but I don’t usually lift weights. Yesterday I did a weight-training class and [...]
Posted in Health16 Comments
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 Marion Kilgour
Most of the cell phone / Wi-Fi hysteria seems to me like it’s been coming from the eastern provinces, although Edmonton has had some short-lived and ineffective campaigns to get Wi-Fi out of schools. But, this summer I got my first taste of local activism about cell towers. Initially, I was on board with the [...]
Posted in Alberta, Health Policy, Pseudoscience, 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, Skepticism0 Comments
07 December 2011 by Richelle McCullough
Image credit: B Tal Near my house in Winnipeg, there’s a summertime Farmer’s Market that I used to go to every weekend to buy fresh local fruits, vegetables and honey. I grew up in rural farming communities and come from a long line of farmers, so I like supporting the little guys who still run family [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Diet and Nutrition, Prairies15 Comments
02 December 2011 by Kim Hebert
Hello? Anyone? Skeptics are often accused of being dogmatic, closed-minded, and/or shills when they criticise particular industries or companies for dishonest, irresponsible, or ethically questionable practices. The natural health industry, with its general lack of oversight and use of science as shiny wrapping paper instead of an inherent foundation, is a veritable cornucopia of claims [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Health, Medicinal Advertising7 Comments
30 November 2011 by Richelle McCullough
Source There has been much abuzz about “pox parties” – the practice of parents getting a bunch of unvaccinated kids together with an infected one (pick one, really, though chicken pox is the focus of the recent article in Time) in the hope that their little sweethearts become ill and therefore “naturally” immune to the [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Skepticism, Vaccines79 Comments
