Skepticism, evidence, science, mythbusting, consumer protection
Between 10-12 August the Hungarian Skeptic Society organized programs again at the international Sziget Festival in Budapest. Participants from all over the World were invited for discussions, see interesting demonstrations and for checking their knowledge via tests on controversial topics.
In some European countries there is a common belief that calcium preparations have beneficial effect in curing allergic reactions of any origin. However there is no evidence-based data to justify this procedure. Now Hungarian doctor Dr. Hunor Novák – who is rather actively promoting evidence based medicine in wide range of media – launched an petition on his Facebook page against using calcium for these conditions. Many well known doctors and researchers joined so there is a good chance that this old will disappear soon in Hungary.
Hungarian Society of Homeopaths (MHOE) launched a controversial TV advertisement campaign with testimonies of well known actors and actresses. This caused an uproar in the scientific community resulting several the publications of critical articles even in daily papers and on generally not so critical portals. Now the videos and related materials can’t be found on the MHOE home page and on their YouTube channel. Some copies had survived the cleaning however.
Until March 2016 graphologists had been used as forensic experts in Hungary. Graphologists used their unproven methodologies even in serious cases. For example in a child abuse case based on the parents’ handwriting they established that those could not have committed crime. Graphologist claim that hand writing analysis can be used to detect lies and to determine personality trades. Now the online portal Index.hu reported that the Ministry of Justice had removed graphology as a method to be used in the court rooms.