26 March 2012 by Kim Hebert
Pictured: Health consumers For background, see Part 1. The company I’m going to talk about is called “Bell Lifestyle Products” and I will use this example to demonstrate the uselessness of Health Canada’s Natural Health Products Database. The BLP “About Us” page is a testimonial by one of the owners summarizing anecdotal reports for their [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Health, Medicinal Advertising1 Comment
23 March 2012 by Dianne Sousa
Visit the Advertising Standards Canada website and take a few minutes to read through the adjudicated consumer complaints for the last quarter of 2011. You’ll come across this curious report: What could this mysterious, overall-wellness promoting medical device be? I happen to know, because I’m the complainant in this case. The report that appears on [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Canada, Medicinal Advertising, Skepticism5 Comments
18 March 2012 by Melany Hamill
Hey there skeptifans. Here are the media Fails and Wins you sent me this week. Baby On Bed Anna sent in this win from Slate, discussing bed sharing with infants. Actress and PhD Mayam Bialik released a parenting book encouraging the practice, but Slate points out the risks associated with it. Parenting is one of [...]
Posted in Skeptical Fails and Wins7 Comments
05 March 2012 by Melany Hamill
The Cross Canada Skeptical Smackdown is back… and this year more cities are participating than ever before. The CCSS is a British-style pub-quiz that occurs every year on or around Pi-Day (March 14th) in multiple locations across Canada with local and national bragging rights at stake. Form a team of up to four players and [...]
Posted in Announcements2 Comments
05 March 2012 by Melany Hamill
Hey there skeptifans. Here are the media Fails and Wins you sent me this week. Study suggests smelling rosemary aromas can boost brain performance Art sent in this fail. Apparently smelling rosemary boosts your “brain performance”. What exactly does this mean? Well, the article won’t tell you. It only mentions researchers saw improvements on “speed [...]
Posted in Skeptical Fails and Wins9 Comments
29 February 2012 by Michael Kruse
This week, the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism at the Centre for Inquiry Canada released a damning report of climate change denial that has found a home at Carleton University in Ottawa. The 98-page report details every aspect of the pseudoscientific and incorrect conclusions drawn by Tom Harris in the course “Climate Change: An [...]
Posted in Skepticism23 Comments
27 February 2012 by Erik Davis
As many of you know, I have a little fun on The Twitters at Deepak Chopra’s expense. I started my alter-ego @DBagChopra last fall to shine a light on the quantum mysticism and overall new-age gooiness he peddles. My hope was that, through humour, I might cause a few people to realize just how [...]
Posted in Alternative Medicine, Health, Skepticism36 Comments
26 February 2012 by Melany Hamill
Hey there skeptifans. Here are the media Fails and Wins you sent me this week. Botox injected by unlicensed practitioners Would you trust just anyone to inject a deadly toxin into your face? The CBC exposed unlicensed clinics that were injecting botox ordered on the internet. Hopefully there will be swift action against these people. [...]
Posted in Skeptical Fails and Wins1 Comment
15 February 2012 by Ethan Clow
Recently I was watching the History Channel when a commercial for Brad Meltzer’s Decoded came on. At first I found the commercial enraging and further eroded my lingering embers of hope that the History Channel had a legitimate interested in promoting actual history and not bunk dressed up to look like a Dan Brown book. [...]
Posted in Conspiracy Theories, Critical Thinking, History, Media, Reviews, Skepticism, Social Sciences3 Comments
12 February 2012 by Melany Hamill
Hey there skeptifans. Here are the media Fails and Wins you sent me this week. Study Debunks Ionic Footbath Detox Claims Scott spotted this win in the Epoch Times. You may have heard of these ionic footbaths that claim to suck toxins out of you through your feet. The water turns brown as you use [...]
Posted in Skeptical Fails and Wins0 Comments
Skeptical Fails and Wins This Week
Skepticism and Beauty
Skeptical Fails and Wins This Week
Anti-Vaccine Notions Misleading…Again
Skeptical Fails and Wins This Week
Antivax 101: Tactics and Tropes of the Antivaccine Movement
Class Action Lawsuit Filed against Homeopathy Manufacturer Boiron and Shoppers Drug Mart
Homeopaths use Legal Thuggery Against Australian and Portuguese Bloggers
Skeptical Fails and Wins This Week
Jenna Talackova and Rights for the Transgendered
cgrl: interesting to translate someone inappropriately c...
Art Tricque: Formula is for babies, not for adults suffering fr...
Art Tricque: "Of course some of them are of great value, but di...
Meg: I agree that there has to be regulation. But when ...
Precepts: The Western medical establishment has a poor histo...
