Month: September 2011

A selection of stories on medicine, skepticism and religion in the media from the last couple of weeks.

Alternative medicines in Australia not receiving proper testing and approval by TGA – “A report released last week by the Australian National Audit Office found that up to 90 per cent of alternate medicines on sale in this country failed to comply with health and safety rules.”

Comment: This is hardly surprising. Its been well known for years that so called “alternative medicines” are not subject to the same rigorous standards as conventional medicine. The mere fact that treatments like homeopathy are still stocked in many pharmacies is evidence that the industry monitoring is pitiful.

Tribunal bans ‘smash’ doctor – “A Bankstown GP who called himself the “Spinalmigrainologist” has been banned from practising medicine after using a dangerous “smash through” technique to try to heal patients…Among the grievances were that Dr Gorman forcefully adjusted the back of a five-year-old boy and supplied drugs to a morphine addict.”

Comment: This sounds like chiropractic on steroids. Not only are his treatments based on no scientific evidence but his actions are clearly unethical (supplying opiates to an addict? – nice job)

Vatican admits ‘grave failures’ in Ireland abuse scandal – “The Vatican today acknowledged “grave failures” over the handling of a child sex abuse scandal involving priests in southern Ireland.”

Comment: I’d say that’s an understatement. The mere fact that the Vatican has a document which issues orders of secrecy when it comes to sex abuse accusations indicates that these “failures” are in fact deliberate and institutionalised.

Is awe still possible in a secular age ? – “In a Nietzschean world without God or gods, is enchantment still an option? In a world bereft of the Platonic forms of beauty and goodness, in a world where we “know” that love and wonder boil down to brain chemistry and synaptic firings, is it pure superstition to hold on to a sense of transcendence? In other words, can a secular world be re-enchanted?”

Comment: An interesting discussion on the idea of awe and non-belief. I completely agree with the author’s opinion. Awe and wonder are certainly possible in a secular world; the existence or non-existence of God doesn’t detract from the beauty of a sunset, the delicate dance of the planets, and infinite depths of the cosmos, or the intricacies of the processes of life.