Mexico has a long history of faith healers and home remedies, but the problem has come to a head in the last few years with a constant stream of ads on television for more “scientific” sounding creams that supposedly lift or enlarge breast and buttocks, magnets that help users lose weight, or pills and powders that cure gastric problems or diabetes.

A Paris appeals court has rejected a bid by the Church of Scientology to get the group’s fraud conviction thrown out because the case has taken too long.

The refusal of that request means the appeals hearing will move forward

The appeal for the Church of Scientology’s conviction on fraud has opened in a Paris court.

The cult’s defense lawyersh plan to argue during the appeal that the conviction curtails freedom of religion and association.

A doctor and evangelical minister who used bogus herbal medications to offer false hope to dozens of people suffering from diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s was found guilty of nearly a dozen federal charges.

Twenty-eight victims or family members of victims who died while taking the products testified against Christine Daniel.

A jury has found self-help gury James Arthur Ray guilty of negligent homicide on Wednesday in the deaths of three of his followers during a botched sweat lodge ceremony near Sedona in October 2009.

By finding Ray guilty of negligent homicide, the jury in effect decided that while Ray’s conduct caused the deaths, he wasn’t aware of or didn’t recognize the risk of death caused by his conduct – in this case, the manner in which he ran the sweat lodge.

The Church of Scientology has been blitzing Melbourne with its so-called ‘Oxford Capacity Analysis’ — a ‘personality test’ used by the cult as a recruitment tool.

Professionals note that the test has no standing in the professional community of psychology practitioners and researchers.

Nowadays it seems that wherever there is a disaster, so-called ‘Scientology Volunteer Ministers’ show up.

Sometimes they pass out food and supplies, but more often than not their real purpose is to ‘assist’ people with the quackery ‘techniques’ thought up by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard

A life-saving blood transfusion was administered to a critically ill baby under a court order secured by a Dublin hospital at a late-night hearing in a High Court judge’s home.

The child’s parents, members of the Jehovah Witness faith objected on religious grounds to the procedure.

The Church of Scientology has been offering alcohol-dependent Aborigines a drug bomb therapy, which it has been told could kill people with kidney problems.

The Scientologists this week responded to a warning by the Northern Territory Health Department and stopped distributing literature which promotes a dangerous drug detoxification therapy.

A father claims Narconon International and the Association for Living and Education International are fronts for Scientology, and that he paid them $35,500 for “essentially worthless treatment” for his drug-addicted son.

He says the groups run rehab programs “to enrich themselves and to provide a recruit base for the Church of Scientology rather than to provide competent treatment for chemical dependency.”

The government is urging councils across the country to stop giving hundreds of thousands of pounds in tax breaks to the Church of Scientology.

The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, said a majority of the public did not want the “controversial organisation” to be given the kind of favourable treatment usually reserved for charities and questioned this use of public money.

Concerns have been raised about a partnership between the Australian Federal Government and a drug awareness group run by members of the controversial Church of Scientology.

The quackery-promoting cult, which also is behind a hate campaign against psychiatry, uses front groups to train and gain influence and respectability.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that passages of the Bible forbid blood transfusions. Members who do accept such treatment can be cast out of the church.

Many Jehovah’s Witnesses carry a signed and witnessed advance directive card absolutely refusing blood and releasing doctors from any liability arising from this refusal.

Scientology’s quackery is highlighted once again, this time by renowned mental health expert Pat McGorry who has joined psychiatry boss Louise Newman and the Brain and Mind Institute’s Ian Hickie in urging senators to vote for an inquiry.

“They are the deniers of the realities of mental illness, which I find incredibly irresponsible and dangerous,” he told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

More than 1,000 unreleased recordings of lectures by L. Ron Hubbard and reams of corresponding writings have been unveiled in the culmination of a 25-year project to locate, restore and transcribe lost pieces of the Scientology founder’s work.

Records show that the science fiction author made up many details of his own life.