Skeptical reporter @ 2013-03-29

Skeptical Reporter for March 29th, 2013 Professor Edzard Ernst, a researcher specializing in the study of complementary and alternative medicine, was fired from the journal “Homeopathy”, by the editor in chief. He has published part of the letter in which he was informed of the decision: “This is to inform you that you have been removed from the Editorial Board of Homeopathy.  The reason for this is the statement you published on your blog on Holocaust Memorial Day 2013 in which you smeared homeopathy and other forms of complementary medicine with a ‘guilt by association’ argument, associating them with the Nazis”. Edzard Ernst who has explained that he was merely recounting historical facts disagrees that he used a fallacy in the text on his blog: “My article and my motives for writing it could have been thoroughly misunderstood – in my view, this is unlikely because I explained my motives in some detail both in the article and in the comments that follow the article. Another explanation could be that Dr Fisher, who also is the Queen’s homeopath, lacks sufficient skills of critical thinking to understand the article and its purpose. Alternatively, he has been waiting for an occasion to fire me ever since I became more openly critical of homeopathy about five years ago”. Parents may be growing increasingly reluctant to immunize their teenage daughters with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, a new study suggests. In 2008, almost 40 percent of parents surveyed said they did not intend to vaccinate their daughters against HPV, according to the study. But that number rose to nearly 44 percent by 2010, even as more parents said their pediatricians recommended the series of three shots. "Our study is the first to look at the reasons parents report for not getting their children immunized over time, and it's one of the few studies to look at this in a national sample," said study author Paul Darden, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Safety concerns about the HPV vaccine and worries about its side effects grew dramatically among parents over the study period. But the most common reason parents gave for not immunizing their children was parents' belief that this vaccine was not needed. Darden said that the rate of acceptance for the HPV vaccine is rising much more slowly than for other teen immunizations, and he suspects parents' fears are tied to sex. The future of reality TV could be kids who think they've had past lives. A Los Angeles production company is currently holding a nationwide casting call for children who claim to have, or have had, past life memories. The casting is held for a new reality series, "Ghost Inside My Child," scheduled to air on the Bio Channel later this year. A pilot episode of the series aired a few months ago, with three kids who had gone through various steps of recovering memories of their alleged past lives. Now, producers Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina -- who are married to each other -- are looking for other families with kids who, as the request states, "have inexplicable memories and experiences of another life." The producers want to eliminate stories that are fabricated or kids whose tales of past life seem obviously prepped. There is another criteria to which the reincarnated rugrats will have their alleged past lives explored: access to documentation. Parents should make sure to analyze possible sources of information that may have inspired a child's "past existence." A California creationist is offering a $10,000 challenge to anyone who can prove in front of a judge that science contradicts the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Joseph Mastropaolo, who says he has set up the contest, the Literal Genesis Trial, in the hope of improving the quality of arguments between creationists and evolutionists, has pledged to put his own money into an escrow account before the debate.