The Skeptic Zone, The Podcast from Australia for Science and Reason.

0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders
0:01:25 Kylie Sturgess interviews Jack of Kent
0:17:40 Skeptic Xmas lunch with Peter Bowditch and Dr Rachael Dunlop
0:34:40 The Token Skeptic with Kylie Sturgess
0:38:38 Dr Rachie Reports - Thermography
0:49:44 Dr Rachie and Richard Saunders on Sydney Radio

You can always rely on Australian Skeptic Richard Saunders to debunk nonsense!

On January 30th 2010 over 300 skeptics around the world took part in a mass homeopathy overdose. The point of this was to raise awareness and create debate on the subject of homeopathy.

The event was a huge success gaining much publicity.

The campaign also had skeptics in America, Australia and New Zealand taking part.

Well done to everyone involved.

Will also broadcast on cable TV in America, in certain cities, listings to come.

A public mass overdose of homeopathic remedies has forced the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths to admit openly that their products do not contain any "material substances". Council spokeswoman Mary Glaisyer admitted publicly that "there´s not one molecule of the original substance remaining" in the diluted remedies that form the basis of this multi-million-dollar industry.

The NZ Skeptics, in conjunction with 10:23, Skeptics in the Pub and other groups nationally and around the world, held the mass overdose in Christchurch on Saturday to highlight the fact that homeopathic products are simply very expensive water drops or sugar/lactose pills. A further aim was to question the ethical issues of pharmacies, in particular, stocking and promoting sham products and services.

We're overdosing a bit on news at the moment, but just to keep you up
with the state of play, the NZ Skeptics and Skeptics in the Pub are
running a homeopathic overdose demonstration in Christchurch this
Saturday (10.30am, Jan 30, in front of the Cathedral in the Square --
come along if you can!).

TV3 should be filming it, so for those of you who can't make it here,
you may see it on the TV3 news that night.

I've appended below the press release we put out about our support
for the UK-based 1023 campaign which is encouraging such
demonstrations to highlight the dangers of pharmacies touting diluted
water as medicine.

Cheers,
Vicki Hyde
Chair-entity

I have just purchased a packet of Boots-brand 84 arnica homeopathic 30C Pills for £5.09, which Boots proudly claim is only 6.1p per pill. Their in-store advice tells me that arnica is good for treating “bruising and injuries”, which gives the impression that this is a very cost-effective health-care option.

Unlike most medication, it didn’t list the actual dose of the active ingredient that each pill contains, so I checked the British Homeopathic Association website. On their website it nonchalantly states that to make a homeopathic remedy, they start with the active ingredient and then proceed to dilute it to 1 per cent concentration. Then they dilute that new solution again, so there is now only 0.01 per cent of the original ingredients. For my 30C pills this diluting is repeated thirty times, which means that the arnica is one part in a million billion billion billion billion billion billion.

On January 30th, 2010, at exactly 10:23am, large groups of skeptics will gather in the town centres of around a dozen cities in the UK and consume a full bottle of homeopathic pills, in order to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of homeopathy. Marsh explains why…

Homeopathy in the UK is alarmingly pervasive – setting aside the fact that the industry is worth an estimated £40million per year, the National Health Service actually plows £4million per year of taxpayers’ money into providing sugar pills as a Complementary Alternative Medicine – much of which goes into the upkeep of the four government-run homeopathic hospitals.

The Skeptic Zone, The Podcast from Australia for Science and Reason.

Episode Time Line:
0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders
0:01:40 Richard Saunders interviews Dr Paul Willis
0:19:45 Dr Rachie Reports - Adam Hamlin PhD Queensland Brain Institute
0:33:14 THE THINK TANK

The Skeptic Zone, The Podcast from Australia for Science and Reason.

Episode Time Line:
0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders & Stefan Sojka
0:04:00 An Open Letter to Alliance Boots by The Merseyside Skeptics Society
0:06:46 Report from Briskepticon2009
0:24:24 The Thornett Award for the Promotion of Reason
0:37:23 THE THINK TANK

The Skeptic Zone, The Podcast from Australia for Science and Reason.

Episode Time Line:
0:00:00 Introduction Richard Saunders
0:02:00 Dr Rachael Dunlop & Richard Saunders interview Christopher Zinn from Choice Magazine
0:36:18 James Randi talks about Facilitated Communication
0:41:18 THE THINK TANK

For more articles on Alternative Therapy, Homeopathy and other health related nonsense check out www.badhomeopathy.co.uk

The ability to use reason, weigh evidence and make rational decisions is an essential skill.

Strongly held beliefs unsupported by evidence can cause significant damage to the deluded individual and those who surround them.

An individual approaching a homeopath for a cold remedy will probably do no more self harm than to waste their money and feed their own delusion, but the homeopath who convinces their client that they're safe to go to West Africa with nothing more than a sugar pill for malaria protection may well kill them.

But mumbo-jumbo becomes most dangerous when it is believed by those with power.

Ben Goldacre, Guardian columnist and author of Bad Science, explores homeopathy and the placebo effect. Not all alternative therapies are equal, you know

During the past week, bemused TV viewers in Australia may have noticed a brief TV commercial relating to a retraction by EASE-a-Cold.

I say "bemused" because it's an ad you could easily "see" several times without taking in much of it and certainly without understanding the context.

In my view, that's perfectly understandable. I think it's an ad that has been deliberately designed NOT to be effective.

The Skeptic Zone, The Podcast from Australia for Science and Reason.

Episode Time Line:
0:00:00: Introduction Richard Saunders
0:01:45: Richard Saunders interviews Desiree Schell
0:30:50: A Grain of Salt - With Eran Segev
0:42:35: The Church of Scientology hits back
0:44:25: The sound of summer
0:45:00: Dr Rachie Reports - Carl Sagan Day 2009. Interviews with
DJ Grothe, Dr Phil Plait (and his mum) & James Randi

The Boots brand is synonymous with health care in the United Kingdom. Your website speaks proudly about your role as a health care provider and your commitment to deliver exceptional patient care. For many people, you are their first resource for medical advice; and their chosen dispensary for prescription and non-prescription medicines. The British public trusts Boots.

However, in evidence given recently to the Commons Science and Technology Committee, you admitted that you do not believe homeopathy to be efficacious. Despite this, homeopathic products are offered for sale in Boots pharmacies – many of them bearing the trusted Boots brand.

Well, I have done what a lot of believers have asked all of us sceptics to do, and went to a Psychic show. I went on Friday night 20/11/09 and saw, Ezio De Angelis. He is one of the Psychics from "The One".

"The One" was a show on Australian television that had a quest for: “The Search for Australia’s Most Gifted Psychic.”

The evening started with me entering the building a little nervous. Not because of my first psychic show, but I was hoping I did not meet someone whom I knew. Thankfully I did not. I then relaxed.

By Wombatwal