Association
While the FSM was launched on the 20 December 2011, its association was registered with New South Wales (NSW) Department of Fair Trading on 13 February 2012.
FSM Executive
Our executive includes:
- President and first Principal – Emeritus Prof John Dwyer
- Vice-President – Emeritus Prof Alastair MacLennan
- Vice-President – Prof Rob Morrison
- Treasurer – Prof Marcello Costa
- Secretary, Chief Executive Officer and web administrator – Loretta Marron
- Ordinary Member – Ken Harvey
- Ordinary Member – Dr Sue Ieraci
- Ordinary Member – Dr Pallave Dasari
President and first Principal
Emeritus Prof John M Dwyer AO, PhD FRACP FRCPI Doc Uni(Hon) ACU. Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of New South Wales. Founder of the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance.
Media appearances:
- Whom do you trust to diagnose your food allergies?
- Complementary medicine – to teach or not to teach?
- New lobby opposes teaching alternative medicine
- Doctors groups fight to keep alternative medicine out of uni
Articles:
- There’s no place for pseudo-scientific chiropractic in Australian universities
- Alternative medicine
- Panacea or placebo: doctors should only practise evidence-based medicine
- Quackery should be ducked
- Good medicine and bad medicine: science to promote the convergence of ‘alternative’ and orthodox medicine
Vice-President
Emeritus Prof Alastair H MacLennan AO, MB CHb MD FRCOG FRANZCOG. The Robinson Research Institute. The South Australian Government’s Scientist of the Year Award for Research for Public Good (part of the South Australian Science Excellence Awards, 2009); the Arthur Wilson Orator’s medal for his oration at the RANZCOG ASM 2010; “Professor Derek Frewin Excellence in student teaching Award”, awarded by the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Adelaide 2011; the Dinah Reddihough Orator’s medal (Australian Academy of Cerebral Palsy & Developmental Medicine) 2012. He and his research team won the best publication from the Robinson Research Institute for their paper in Molecular Psychiatry on novel mutations in cerebral palsy, 2015.
Media appearances:
- Standing up for Science
- “Mumbo Jumbo” medicine in our universities
- University “pseudoscience” criticised
Articles:
Vice-President
Prof Rob Morrison OAM, PhD. Professorial Fellow, School of Education, Flinders University, Skeptics Eureka Prize for Critical Thinking 2002. South Australian Government Prize for Science Communication Excellence 2005. Australian Government Eureka Prize for the Promotion of Science 2007.
Media appearances:
- On Friends of Science in Medicine- Interview with Dr Rob Morrison
- Alternative Medicine courses questioned
Articles:
Treasurer
Prof Marcello Costa FAA. Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor and Professor of Neurophysiology (2012). Professor of Neurophysiology, Flinders University. “Unsung Hero of South Australian Science Communication” Award of the National Science Week, Australian Science Communicators (SA), 2008; Life membership of the Australian Neuroscience Society (ANS), 2010; Inducted member of the Bragg Group of the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus), 2015; and Federation of Neurogastroenterology and Motility (FNM) Lifetime Achievement Award, 2018.
Media appearances:
Articles:
- Does traditional Chinese medicine have a place in the health system?
- Mind over matter? The ethics of using the placebo effect
- A neuroscientist’s view: spare children the manipulation of chiropractic quackery
- Pointing the bone at chiropractic quackery – lessons from the UK
Secretary, Chief Executive Officer and web administrator
Loretta Marron OAM, BSc AssocDip(Bus) AAII MACS. Twice recipient of the ‘Skeptic of the Year’ award.
Articles:
- International view: regulating treatments ‘down under’
- The backlash against universities offering complementary medicine courses
- Chiropractors moving in on GPs’ turf
Ordinary Member
Dr Ken Harvey, MBBS FRCPA, Chair of the Governing Council of Health Action International, Asia Pacific (HAIAP), Monash University, Victoria.
Ordinary Member
Dr Sue Ieraci, MBBS FACEM, Public Hospital Emergency Physician, Senior Staff Specialist, Emergency Medicine, Bankstown Hospital, University of Sydney.
Ordinary Member
Dr Pallave Dasari, BMedSc, PhD, MSPPM. Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, Discipline of Surgery, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and The Robinson Institute, The University of Adelaide, SA. Awarded Chancellor’s Medal at Northern Territory University (2002); Peter Meffin Memorial Postgraduate Research Award from Flinders University (2004); Finalist for BUPA Emerging Health Researcher (2012); Inaugural recipient Downer-Rann Scholarship from Carnegie Mellon University (2015); Inaugural award Superstars of STEM from Science and Technology Australia (2017).