Image from Pixabay, via photosforclass.com A couple of days ago TVNZ rather credulously carried a story under the headline that “garlic can help” cure flu or covid-19, seemingly based on this article in the Financial Review. Presumably with the added benefit of keeping vampires away. However… from the Financial Review piece That is, the TVNZ headline […]
Continue readingTag: medicine
lactase revisited
I’m really enjoying running on-line tuts with Schol Bio students, because the questions & discussions are so interesting. (So, hopefully the students enjoy them too!) Last week we got onto talking about the enzyme lactase and the fact that in some populations many individuals continue to produce it into adulthood (thus making them lactose-tolerant, & […]
Continue readinga measles compendium
With the discovery last week of 2 cases of measles in Auckland, I thought I’d pull together a few of the posts that I wrote during our last outbreak (in 2019) but which are still very relevant. Measles isn’t a benign disease, and unfortunately vaccination coverage for it has declined over the last few years, […]
Continue readingcovid-19 infection and how the spike protein is involved in doing harm
Just this morning a journalist sent me a link to a press release about a new paper looking at how SARS-Cov-2 affects the vascular system, & asked me to comment on it for a article. If you’d like to read the actual paper you can find it here, but be aware that it does get […]
Continue readingon Plan B’s support for an anti-vaccine court case
Some of my readers may be aware that Nelson lawyer Sue Grey is taking a case to the NZ High Court in an attempt to stop the roll-out of the Pfizer vaccine. I don’t agree with her stance, but she has every right to do this. However, I was more than a little surprised to […]
Continue readingsam bailey on isolating viruses, and why she is wrong
Recently I was told I needed to go to the Youtube channel of Dr Sam BaileyA and watch one of her videosB. So I did. This particular video is called The Truth About Virus Isolation, and yes it’s on Youtube, and no I’m not linking directly because I refuse to link to such a misleading […]
Continue readingwhy it’s important to check sources
While checking my spam folder (before yeeting the contents permanently) I noticed that I’d been sent a bunch of email ‘newsletters’ from the group “Voices for Freedom.” Out of interest I opened one, just in case the contents were worth a post or two – & indeed they were. The writers of the newsletter state […]
Continue readingso much misinformation on a page supposedly about health
It’s always something of a shock to come across a page run by a health-focused business that contains substantial misinformation. This one left me gobsmacked, given the sheer number of statements that are demonstrably untrue. And while a fair bit of the content is prefaced by the statement that it’s the personal opinion of one […]
Continue readingevidence vs spin
A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of this blog post by New Zealand’s “Plan B” group. While initially this group opposed the government’s use of lockdowns to manage covid19 outbreaks in this country, they seem to have since moved on to opposing the rollout of vaccines against SARS-Cov-2. And, while they claim […]
Continue readingthere’s a word for this sort of misinformation about vaccines
A friend found a concerning FB post (see below – this is a public post & so I have not redacted the name) & – as you do – immediately queried it with Southern Cross Life & Health Insurance as well as sending the screenshot to me¹. We both read the relevant policies & exclusions […]
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