Homeopathy: No Ingredients, No Testing, No Facts
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- Category: Latest JREF News
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JREF to Congress: “Homeopathy Awareness Week” Should Be a Time to Tell the Truth about Quack Medicines
LOS ANGELES—For this year’s “World Homeopathy Awareness Week,” the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) issued a strong statement against the misleading advertising of homeopathic medicines and called on Congress to close the loophole exempting these quack products from certain FDA regulations.
“So-called homeopathic remedies may be the only products given a free pass to say they’re intended to treat disease, without any proof at all that they work.” JREF President D.J. Grothe said.
“Drugs have to be tested for safety and potency before they can be sold. Supplements have to carry disclaimers, telling consumers that their claims have not been evaluated by the FDA. Homeopathy is exempt from these requirements because of a law passed more than 70 years ago. It’s time to close the loophole and make manufactures of these quack medications play by the same rules as everyone else.”
Shoo!Tag Investigation by The Rev. Anaglyph
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- Written by Maria Myrback
- Category: Swift
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Weekly Media Roundup
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- Category: Swift
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This week: stories about this year’s Pigasus Awards, radio interviews with Randi, and another great TV appearance in Norway.
The Long Debate and the Importance of Engaging with “Believers” on a Philosophical Level
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- Written by Matt Lowry
- Category: Swift
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I suppose many of us who call ourselves skeptics go through various stages in our skepticism; after all, if we didn’t we wouldn’t be human. I know that the way I view my skepticism, as a coherent worldview & way of knowing consistent with the scientific (and related philosophical) methods, is a bit different than in what I like to call the “youth” of my skepticism.
In the early days, I was often brash and overly dismissive of those who espoused various, for lack of a better term, woo-woo beliefs. Over time I came to realize that I wasn’t really engaging in good skepticism but instead overt cynicism: I was simply adhering to a position and everything which didn’t automatically agree with that position got dumped into the proverbial dustbin. I’ve spoken with a number of other skeptics who agree that this is how they used to behave as well; it was almost as if I was so proud of my newly acquired “skeptical badge” that I wanted to go around bashing everyone who didn’t think like me over the head with it.
Now, from what I understand of human nature, we all do this sort of thing to a certain degree or another, but that fact doesn’t necessarily justify such behavior and it certainly doesn’t help to advance any sort of fruitful discussion.
Read more: The Long Debate and the Importance of Engaging with “Believers” on a Philosophical Level
Last Week at Science-Based Medicine
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- Written by Harriet Hall, MD (The SkepDoc)
- Category: Newsflash
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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 in medicine.
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