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Here is this week's summary of the world of strange beliefs and news of the mysterious courtesy of Doubtful News.

It was a big, bad week for ghost hunters and psychics. First, Doubtful News is providing continuous updates on the Marks psychic family trial taking place in Florida. It's been outrageous so far and promises to get more incredible as additional witnesses testify. A link to the updates are found in our header for easy access. Check back often. Direct link is here. 

In other psychic news, Russian TV psychics take an old woman's life savings. 

Two people finally step forward to police which results in the capture of a tricky psychic. 

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Here is a recap of the stories that appeared last week at Science-Based Medicine, a multi-author skeptical blog that separates the science from the woo-woo in medicine.

California Acupuncturists Don’t Need to Know English! (Ben Kavoussi)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/california-acupuncturists-dont-need-to-know-english/ Two state senators have sent a cease-and-desist letter to the California Acupuncture Board directing them to immediately abandon their attempts to institute an English-only exam. Licensed acupuncturists are already endangering the public with nonsensical and often unsanitary procedures, and licensing them when they can’t speak their patients’ language can only lead to several foreseeable kinds of harm resulting from poor patient/provider communication.

Danger Zones of Parental Vaccine Refusal (John Snyder)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/danger-zones-of-parental-vaccine-refusal/ Vaccine exemptions for religious and personal reasons are allowed in most states; they are endangering our public health. Parents mean to act in their child’s best interest but they refuse vaccines for a number of faulty reasons, all based on repeatedly debunked myths.

Sharyl Attkisson and CBS News: An epic fail in reporting on the murder of autistic teen Alex Spourdalakis (David Gorski)  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/sharyl-attkisson-promoting-wakefields-narrative-about-murder-alex-spourdalakis/ The anti-vaccine movement has blatantly highjacked the story of the brutal murder of an autistic child to promote its message. The CBS reporter lies by omission and exploits Andrew Wakefield’s visit to the child’s bedside. Activists are doing their best to absolve the mother of guilt for her crime by blaming everything from vaccines to failure of the medical staff to “detoxify” the child.

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I have to hand it to the snake oil peddlers over at NES Health – they have managed to squeeze just about every energy-based pseudoscience into one scam. What does “NES” stand for, you wonder? “Nutrition Energy System.

The NES site itself is beyond parody, so let me just quote them:

“Through its pioneering work with medical doctors and acupuncture therapists over the last decade, NES Health has not only discovered - and mapped - the human body field but it has also managed to integrate this ground-breaking knowledge with the principles of energy information.”

So, in the last decade they “discovered” the non-existent “human body field” that has been part of cutting edge pseudoscience for decades. Devices that measure the body’s “energy field” go back at least to the 1970s. A simple search on the term will indicate that this is nothing new, nor unique to NES.

 

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The secret is out: professional storefront psychics are mostly comprised of fakes, frauds, cheats, and con artists. Step into a psychic storefront – especially in New York City or Southern Florida where organized criminal elements of the Romani (gypsy) culture is a significant presence – at your own extreme risk.

Well, maybe that doesn’t seem like a secret to many skeptics, but the fact is that since the inception of the modern skeptic movement, skeptics have pursued and possessed specialized knowledge in the realm of paranormal claims such as psychic phenomena. Of course, skeptics are interested in a vast panoply of pseudoscience – a glance down the list of subjects at the Skeptic’s Dictionary will produce an alphabetical list of nonsense, from the doofus to the deadly, “From Abracadabra to Zombies,” as it says on the home page.

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 Here is a rundown of the alt med, superstitions and strange news of the week courtesy of Doubtful News

Last week we had the news of the death of Indian activist Narender Dabholkar. An emergency anti-superstition law was passed but it faces opposition.

 A suspect was arrested who was part of a spiritualist organization noted for violence.

There were several bits of important news this week in alternative medicine. 

An alligator gets acupuncture. Yes, it's a croc.

  1. Last Week In Science-Based Medicine
  2. The Guyra Ghost
  3. JREF eBook: Karen Stollznow's Haunting America
  4. Impressive denial and unimpressive miracles - This week in Doubtful News