The Alternative Medicine Racket: How the Feds Fund Quacks

[Axulus]

[Youtube]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RWbkvCMuU5A[/youtube]

Behind the dubious medical claims of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Deepak Chopra is a decades-long strategy to promote alternative medicine to the American public.

Twenty-three years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to investigate a wide variety of unconventional medical practices from around the world. Five-and-a-half billion dollars later, the NIH has found no cures for disease. But it has succeeded in bringing every kind of quackery- from faith healing to homeopathy-out of the shadows and into the heart of the American medical establishment.

 

[SimpleDon]

It wasn't so much the NIH that legitimized the quackery of alternative medicine as it was the US Congress in the 1990's. As part of the deregulation derangement they passed a law forbidding the FDA from regulating alternative medicine. This law dovetailed nicely with the widespread belief that the drug companies were suppressing alternative medicine because it was effective and with the desire of the drug companies to be able to sell water at drug prices.

The rule is if alternative medicine was effective it would just be called medicine.

I didn't watch the video, I no longer hear well and prefer to read a transcript.

 

[whichphilosophy]

[Youtube]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RWbkvCMuU5A[/youtube]

Behind the dubious medical claims of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Deepak Chopra is a decades-long strategy to promote alternative medicine to the American public.

Twenty-three years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to investigate a wide variety of unconventional medical practices from around the world. Five-and-a-half billion dollars later, the NIH has found no cures for disease. But it has succeeded in bringing every kind of quackery- from faith healing to homeopathy-out of the shadows and into the heart of the American medical establishment.

This is a somewhat distorted view. While there is a lot of quackery out there NIH research can be found here since in some but not all cases alternative treatments have been effective.



http://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/ViewFactSheet.aspx?csid=85

Some seem inconclusive with mixed results eg GINGKO, some seen negative and some seem positive(Spinal manipulation and certain applications of acupuncture).

Here are some negative results. However I may add that Ephedra was used in the West for weight loss when in fact
NIH also learned that so-called “natural” therapies may not always be safe or effective. For example, the FDA banned the U.S. sale of dietary supplements containing the herb ephedra, which was often used in weight-loss products, citing that they posed an unreasonable risk of injury or illness—particularly cardiovascular complications—and a risk of death. Kava, an herb that has been widely used for insomnia, stress, and anxiety, has been linked to liver damage. Other botanical products, such as St. John’s wort, which is used for depression, may interact with certain drugs and affect how the body processes a drug, making it less effective. And, research regarding Ayurvedic medicine products purchased via the Internet revealed that nearly 21% of the Ayurvedic medicines tested contained detectable levels of lead (most common), mercury, or arsenic.

I emphasized EPHEDRA in red because it is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for treating treat symptoms of bronchial asthma, colds, influenza, allergies, and hives In the West some slimming companies adopted it for weight loss with some serious results. In TCM it is supposed to be applied cautiously due to its side effects. The Chinese word for it is Ma Huang which means asking for trouble as this is recognised to be a problematic treatment if not used correctly.

Research is also in progress by the WHO

 

[Derec]

the desire of the drug companies to be able to sell water at drug prices.

Funny because that's exactly, without exaggeration, what homeopaths are doing. At the level of dilution they are using there is unlikely to be even a single molecule of the active ingredient left in the final preparation.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Conventional medicine is not without its problems

I thought I will wheel this old article again which is now 15 years old

http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm

America's Healthcare System is the Third Leading Cause of Death

Barbara Starfield, M.D. (2000)

Summary by Kah Ying Choo
This Journal of the American Medical Association article illuminates the failure of the U.S. medical system in providing decent medical care for Americans.
• 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
• 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals

• 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals

• 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals

• 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer. END OF QUOTE:

The amount of people benefitting from medicine runs into the millions, but these are still high figures

 

[Axulus]

It wasn't so much the NIH that legitimized the quackery of alternative medicine as it was the US Congress in the 1990's. As part of the deregulation derangement they passed a law forbidding the FDA from regulating alternative medicine. This law dovetailed nicely with the widespread belief that the drug companies were suppressing alternative medicine because it was effective and with the desire of the drug companies to be able to sell water at drug prices.

The rule is if alternative medicine was effective it would just be called medicine.

I didn't watch the video, I no longer hear well and prefer to read a transcript.

Here's the related article:

Behind the dubious medical claims of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Deepak Chopra is a decades-long strategy to promote alternative medicine to the American public. Twenty-three years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to investigate a wide variety of unconventional medical practices from around the world. Five-and-a-half billion dollars later, the NIH has found no cures for disease. But it has succeeded in bringing every kind of quackery—from faith healing to homeopathy—out of the shadows and into the heart of the American medical establishment.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a part of the NIH, is largely the brainchild of a single person. In the 1980s, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was convinced that bee pollen extract cured his hay fever. As the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee overseeing NIH funding, Harkin set aside $2 million to establish the NCCIH's forerunner, the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM). Senator Harkin did not respond to multiple requests to participate in this story.

The OAM's stated mission was to investigate the medical value of alternative therapies. Despite its minuscule budget, its mandate was massive. Almost any kind of unusual therapy could be considered "alternative", spanning dozens of widely differing cultural traditions and historical eras. Everything from homeopathic remedies for arthritis to acupuncture for back pain to remote prayer for HIV/AIDS to coffee enemas for fighting cancer was in its purview.

Another looming challenge was bridging the ravine between the scientific establishment and the heterodox community of of alternative medicine practitioners. The OAM's first director, Dr. Joseph Jacobs, seemed ideally suited to this task, as he belonged to both worlds. The son of a Mohawk mother and a part-Cherokee father, Jacobs was raised on the Kahnawake Mohawk Reservation and had spent a lifetime navigating different cultures. As he recounts in his lively memoir, Mohawks on the Nile: Journey of the Warrior Spirit, Jacobs used traditional Mohawk remedies long before earning degrees from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and Yale Medical School.

But Jacobs' skill at multicultural maneuvering was no match for the OAM's politicized advisory council. The OAM's charter mandated that its 18-member advisory council be heavily weighted to favor experts and practitioners of alternative medicine. As a result, many on the council were unfamiliar with the rigors of scientific research. "Many things that seem to be effective don't stand up to scientific research but they still cure people," Rep. Berkley Bedell (D-Iowa) told the Journal of the American Medical Association, shortly after his appointment to the advisory council by Harkin in 1992. "If that's the case, then I hate to think we may squelch something by insisting it has to go through scientific investigation."

Others had incentives to validate alternative therapies that were at odds with the OAM's stated mission of impartiality and objectivity. An original member of the advisory council, Deepak Chopra benefited from the imprimatur of the NIH years before Oprah Winfrey catapulted the New Age healer to national stardom. Four members of the council personally selected by Harkin had scant medical training yet were vocal advocates for alternative medicine.

Trapped in a bureaucracy of politics and magical thinking, the science-minded Jacobs didn't last long. "Harkin and his cronies probably wanted somebody else," he tells Reason TV. "But they wanted me to do their bidding. And I really couldn't do that." Under pressure to validate dubious treatments without scientific evidence, Jacobs resigned after only two years on the job. "I prefer the ticks of Connecticut to the politics of Washington," he declared to The New York Times at the time of his departure.

With Jacobs out of the picture, the advisory council was free to pursue its own vision of the future of American medicine. Over the objections of NIH director Harold Varmus, Harkin elevated the Office of Alternative Medicine to the status of a "national center." Rechristened as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), it enjoyed independent control of a skyrocketing budget

By 2010, total yearly spending at the NIH on alternative medicine reached $521 million. The bloated budget funded long-term studies of dozens of remedies, such as shark cartilage for cancer, St. John's Wort for depression, and acupuncture for pain. At the time, a few treatments seemed to hold reasonable promise. Many others had no plausible biological mechanism behind their hoped-for effects and would have to violate fundamental laws of physics in order to work. Today, after billions spent investigating alternative treatments, no cures have been found.

Perhaps NCCIH's most significant accomplishment has been to crack open the doors of the American medical establishment, a long sought-after goal of many alternative practitioners. The University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine offers patients homeopathy. Even though NCCIH's own studies suggest that Reiki is useless, it hasn't stopped Dr. Oz from introducing the "energy medicine" to a new generation of surgeons at Columbia University, which is a major recipient of NCCIH funds. Even Harvard Medical School teaches alternative medicine.

Does it even matter? So what if patients pay a little bit more for treatments that don't work? As long as alternative therapies do no harm—premum non nocere, as the venerable medical maxim goes—and the placebo effect makes them feel a bit better, why bother opposing them? Beyond the basic question of taxpayer dollars supporting quackery, the pursuit of unproven therapies can have tragic consequences.

Following his diagnosis of a rare, treatable form of pancreatic cancer, Apple CEO Steve Jobs postponed medical treatment for nine months. Believing in the curative power of alternative medicine, Jobs tried acupuncture, bowel cleanses, herbs, and a vegan diet. Although we will never know for sure, medical experts have speculated that Jobs' faith in alternative medicine may have hastened his death.

If so, it's hardly an unusual event. Numerous reports of death and injury from alternative treatments have been documented at Whatstheharm.net. To be sure, even the best medical treatment comes with serious risks. But unlike standard medical care, the dangers associated with alternative treatments come with virtually no possibility of a health outcome better than a placebo.

Although Harkin has retired from the Senate, state support for alternative medicine seems secure. States license chiropractors while opening up the Medicaid coffers to naturopaths. Alternative medicine has been written into the Affordable Care Act, though it's uncertain how the Department of Health and Human Services will interpret the legislation. Even Hillary Clinton's medical advisor, Dr. Mark Hyman, evangelizes his own brand of alternative medicine, known as "functional medicine."

And what about that bee pollen extract that inspired Harkin to start the Office of Alternative Medicine to begin with? As with much of the rest of alternative medicine, scientific studies have long since debunked bee pollen's alleged power to minimize hay fever or any other illness. Yet as a matter of faith, people continue to buy it. "Think about it, Harkin," Dr. Jacobs muses. "Your allergies can go away the next day when the pollen level goes down. It's just not what I'd call rigorous thinking."

http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/09/04/alternative-medicine-racket

- - - Updated - - -

Conventional medicine is not without its problems

I thought I will wheel this old article again which is now 15 years old

http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm

America's Healthcare System is the Third Leading Cause of Death

Barbara Starfield, M.D. (2000)

Summary by Kah Ying Choo
This Journal of the American Medical Association article illuminates the failure of the U.S. medical system in providing decent medical care for Americans.
• 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
• 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals

• 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals

• 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals

• 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer. END OF QUOTE:

The amount of people benefitting from medicine runs into the millions, but these are still high figures

What does conventional medicine not being perfect have anything to do with the efficacy of alternative "medicine" and the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars toward it?

 

[whichphilosophy]

Here's the related article:

Behind the dubious medical claims of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Deepak Chopra is a decades-long strategy to promote alternative medicine to the American public. Twenty-three years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to investigate a wide variety of unconventional medical practices from around the world. Five-and-a-half billion dollars later, the NIH has found no cures for disease. But it has succeeded in bringing every kind of quackery—from faith healing to homeopathy—out of the shadows and into the heart of the American medical establishment.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a part of the NIH, is largely the brainchild of a single person. In the 1980s, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was convinced that bee pollen extract cured his hay fever. As the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee overseeing NIH funding, Harkin set aside $2 million to establish the NCCIH's forerunner, the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM). Senator Harkin did not respond to multiple requests to participate in this story.

The OAM's stated mission was to investigate the medical value of alternative therapies. Despite its minuscule budget, its mandate was massive. Almost any kind of unusual therapy could be considered "alternative", spanning dozens of widely differing cultural traditions and historical eras. Everything from homeopathic remedies for arthritis to acupuncture for back pain to remote prayer for HIV/AIDS to coffee enemas for fighting cancer was in its purview.

Another looming challenge was bridging the ravine between the scientific establishment and the heterodox community of of alternative medicine practitioners. The OAM's first director, Dr. Joseph Jacobs, seemed ideally suited to this task, as he belonged to both worlds. The son of a Mohawk mother and a part-Cherokee father, Jacobs was raised on the Kahnawake Mohawk Reservation and had spent a lifetime navigating different cultures. As he recounts in his lively memoir, Mohawks on the Nile: Journey of the Warrior Spirit, Jacobs used traditional Mohawk remedies long before earning degrees from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and Yale Medical School.

But Jacobs' skill at multicultural maneuvering was no match for the OAM's politicized advisory council. The OAM's charter mandated that its 18-member advisory council be heavily weighted to favor experts and practitioners of alternative medicine. As a result, many on the council were unfamiliar with the rigors of scientific research. "Many things that seem to be effective don't stand up to scientific research but they still cure people," Rep. Berkley Bedell (D-Iowa) told the Journal of the American Medical Association, shortly after his appointment to the advisory council by Harkin in 1992. "If that's the case, then I hate to think we may squelch something by insisting it has to go through scientific investigation."

Others had incentives to validate alternative therapies that were at odds with the OAM's stated mission of impartiality and objectivity. An original member of the advisory council, Deepak Chopra benefited from the imprimatur of the NIH years before Oprah Winfrey catapulted the New Age healer to national stardom. Four members of the council personally selected by Harkin had scant medical training yet were vocal advocates for alternative medicine.

Trapped in a bureaucracy of politics and magical thinking, the science-minded Jacobs didn't last long. "Harkin and his cronies probably wanted somebody else," he tells Reason TV. "But they wanted me to do their bidding. And I really couldn't do that." Under pressure to validate dubious treatments without scientific evidence, Jacobs resigned after only two years on the job. "I prefer the ticks of Connecticut to the politics of Washington," he declared to The New York Times at the time of his departure.

With Jacobs out of the picture, the advisory council was free to pursue its own vision of the future of American medicine. Over the objections of NIH director Harold Varmus, Harkin elevated the Office of Alternative Medicine to the status of a "national center." Rechristened as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), it enjoyed independent control of a skyrocketing budget

By 2010, total yearly spending at the NIH on alternative medicine reached $521 million. The bloated budget funded long-term studies of dozens of remedies, such as shark cartilage for cancer, St. John's Wort for depression, and acupuncture for pain. At the time, a few treatments seemed to hold reasonable promise. Many others had no plausible biological mechanism behind their hoped-for effects and would have to violate fundamental laws of physics in order to work. Today, after billions spent investigating alternative treatments, no cures have been found.

Perhaps NCCIH's most significant accomplishment has been to crack open the doors of the American medical establishment, a long sought-after goal of many alternative practitioners. The University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine offers patients homeopathy. Even though NCCIH's own studies suggest that Reiki is useless, it hasn't stopped Dr. Oz from introducing the "energy medicine" to a new generation of surgeons at Columbia University, which is a major recipient of NCCIH funds. Even Harvard Medical School teaches alternative medicine.

Does it even matter? So what if patients pay a little bit more for treatments that don't work? As long as alternative therapies do no harm—premum non nocere, as the venerable medical maxim goes—and the placebo effect makes them feel a bit better, why bother opposing them? Beyond the basic question of taxpayer dollars supporting quackery, the pursuit of unproven therapies can have tragic consequences.

Following his diagnosis of a rare, treatable form of pancreatic cancer, Apple CEO Steve Jobs postponed medical treatment for nine months. Believing in the curative power of alternative medicine, Jobs tried acupuncture, bowel cleanses, herbs, and a vegan diet. Although we will never know for sure, medical experts have speculated that Jobs' faith in alternative medicine may have hastened his death.

If so, it's hardly an unusual event. Numerous reports of death and injury from alternative treatments have been documented at Whatstheharm.net. To be sure, even the best medical treatment comes with serious risks. But unlike standard medical care, the dangers associated with alternative treatments come with virtually no possibility of a health outcome better than a placebo.

Although Harkin has retired from the Senate, state support for alternative medicine seems secure. States license chiropractors while opening up the Medicaid coffers to naturopaths. Alternative medicine has been written into the Affordable Care Act, though it's uncertain how the Department of Health and Human Services will interpret the legislation. Even Hillary Clinton's medical advisor, Dr. Mark Hyman, evangelizes his own brand of alternative medicine, known as "functional medicine."

And what about that bee pollen extract that inspired Harkin to start the Office of Alternative Medicine to begin with? As with much of the rest of alternative medicine, scientific studies have long since debunked bee pollen's alleged power to minimize hay fever or any other illness. Yet as a matter of faith, people continue to buy it. "Think about it, Harkin," Dr. Jacobs muses. "Your allergies can go away the next day when the pollen level goes down. It's just not what I'd call rigorous thinking."

http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/09/04/alternative-medicine-racket

- - - Updated - - -

Conventional medicine is not without its problems

I thought I will wheel this old article again which is now 15 years old

http://www.health-care-reform.net/causedeath.htm

America's Healthcare System is the Third Leading Cause of Death

Barbara Starfield, M.D. (2000)

Summary by Kah Ying Choo
This Journal of the American Medical Association article illuminates the failure of the U.S. medical system in providing decent medical care for Americans.
• 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
• 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals

• 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals

• 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals

• 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs

Thus, America's healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer. END OF QUOTE:

The amount of people benefitting from medicine runs into the millions, but these are still high figures

What does conventional medicine not being perfect have anything to do with the efficacy of alternative "medicine" and the waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars toward it?

The NIH research hasn't concluded it is a total waste of time per the research quoted. A lot is but not necessarily all.

 

[thebeave]

We can thank Oprah for putting both Dr. Oz and Deepak Chopra at the forefront of this alternative medicine nonsense. Not to mention the many other health quacks and pseudoscience practitioners she has given a voice to on her show (Jenny McCarthy, the author of The Secret). That woman is really a menace to society when you think about it.

 

[untermensche]

These so-called medicines exist because of worship of the market.

They have no government sanction.

 

[Axulus]

These so-called medicines exist because of worship of the market.

They have no government sanction.

Lol, did you even bother to read or watch anything I posted in this thread? Did you somehow miss the hundreds of millions of federal dollars going to fund alternative medicine centers at medical schools? The favorable government report on alternative medicines released by the NCCIH in the 90's? The half a billion annual budget for the NCCIH, etc.?

See the government produced report here, a report that was produced after kicking out the dissidents for not towing the line of their political masters, including Dr. Joseph Jacobs, whom is featured in the video:

http://www.chiro.org/alt_med_abstracts/FULL/Expanding_Medical_Horizons_UPDATE/index.shtml

FFS, they put "science" repeatedly in scare quotes:

Feast your eyes on this load of shit:

Naturopathic physicians were licensed in a very few states and ignored in all the rest. But these competing groups, with their different therapeutic philosophies and different medical "sciences", were left out of consideration in the public discussion of medical issues. The allopathic medical societies enforced "acceptable and prevailing standards" of medical care, and woe betide the physician who departed from them. Specifically, physicians were in serious risk of being professionally disciplined if they treated patients with the modalities which subsequently became known as "alternative".

A small handful of homoeopathic MDs practiced the homoeopathic medical "science", availing themselves of the protection afforded by incorporation of the Homoeopathic Pharmacopoiea in the 1938 US Food Drug and Cosmetic Law (the sponsor of this Law, New York Senator Royal Copeland, had started his professional life as a homoeopathic physician).

The prevailing view that the allopathic medicine practiced by the majority of physicians was scientific relieved the regulatory authorities of any real need to think about the philosophical basis of what they were doing. Any and all regulation along allopathic lines was assumed to be scientific, and there could not be any real conflict between "science" and the public interest. Few had given thought to the possibility that other medical "sciences" might exist, and those who might have queried the allopathic assumptions were never given the microphone.

And if that isn't enough, they end the intro with this profound insight.

The fact that alternative modalities are more user-friendly than allopathy makes such a course of action even more attractive. Acupuncture, herbalism, homoeopathy, and chiropractic are generally recognized as inherently safe. While an alternative practitioner can, of course, be wantonly negligent and thus inflict harm on the patient, the ordinary practice of these disciplines is not dangerous at all.

While they are criticized by allopathy on this ground as being mere placebos, the truth is that therapeutic modalities which operate with, rather than against, the organism’s own healing impulses are intrinsically less dangerous.

The typically allopathic idea that the only "effective" medicines are large doses of highly toxic substances is theoretical rubbish. But because allopathy insists on employing these intrinsically toxic medicines, to protect patients the allopathic licensing requirements should be stricter than those for the alternative modalities.

Allopathic fulminations about patients risking their lives by depriving themselves of "real" medicine may be dismissed as political posturing. Judging from the public’s expressed preference, it would be more accurate to say that patients risk their lives, and deprive themselves of real help, when they go to the allopath.

I'm surprised they didn't capitalize Truth.

http://www.chiro.org/alt_med_abstracts/FULL/Expanding_Medical_Horizons_UPDATE/Introduction.shtml

And then there is this humdinger in the conclusion:

Many of the alternative therapies described and discussed in this report--hypnosis, art therapy, music therapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, acupuncture, and many herbal and nutritional supplementations, to name a few--have already received extensive and positive clinical evaluations. However, no critical mass of researchers, clinicians, and policymakers has formed to give them more exposure and recognition. Therefore, many of these therapies should be included in any serious discussions about developing a truly comprehensive health care system. Others, as the report has indicated, need to be quickly and thoroughly evaluated before any judgment can be passed. However, they still may represent a great and largely untapped resource for improving the Nation's health.

 

[untermensche]

We do want some scientists and practitioners to think outside the box and experiment with what may turn out to be nothing.

In order to advance you have to willing to fund many dead ends.

You want the government to fully control the direction of medical research?

Where is this love for government planning coming from?

 

[Axulus]

We do want some scientists and practitioners to think outside the box and experiment with what may turn out to be nothing.

In order to advance you have to willing to fund many dead ends.

You want the government to fully control the direction of medical research?

Where is this love for government planning coming from?

How is that equivalent to this bullshit below, in any way, shape or form?

The fact that alternative modalities are more user-friendly than allopathy makes such a course of action even more attractive. Acupuncture, herbalism, homoeopathy, and chiropractic are generally recognized as inherently safe. While an alternative practitioner can, of course, be wantonly negligent and thus inflict harm on the patient, the ordinary practice of these disciplines is not dangerous at all.

While they are criticized by allopathy on this ground as being mere placebos, the truth is that therapeutic modalities which operate with, rather than against, the organism’s own healing impulses are intrinsically less dangerous.

The typically allopathic idea that the only "effective" medicines are large doses of highly toxic substances is theoretical rubbish. But because allopathy insists on employing these intrinsically toxic medicines, to protect patients the allopathic licensing requirements should be stricter than those for the alternative modalities.

Allopathic fulminations about patients risking their lives by depriving themselves of "real" medicine may be dismissed as political posturing. Judging from the public’s expressed preference, it would be more accurate to say that patients risk their lives, and deprive themselves of real help, when they go to the allopath.

Many of the alternative therapies described and discussed in this report--hypnosis, art therapy, music therapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, acupuncture, and many herbal and nutritional supplementations, to name a few--have already received extensive and positive clinical evaluations. However, no critical mass of researchers, clinicians, and policymakers has formed to give them more exposure and recognition. Therefore, many of these therapies should be included in any serious discussions about developing a truly comprehensive health care system. Others, as the report has indicated, need to be quickly and thoroughly evaluated before any judgment can be passed. However, they still may represent a great and largely untapped resource for improving the Nation's health.

 

[untermensche]

...Acupuncture, herbalism, homoeopathy, and chiropractic...

Three have valid scientific evidence for effectiveness in some ailments.

What do you want?

 

[lpetrich]

Axulus's OP is a lot of bellyaching about (alleged) government involvement in Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

But CAM is almost all private-sector, meaning that it is run by the sort of people that Axulus celebrates as superior beings: business leaders / entrepreneurs. Any government involvement is thus support for those allegedly superior beings.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

If sick people are willing to pay money for snake oil, then wouldn't it be immoral to not start up a snake oil company in order to sell it to them?

 

[whichphilosophy]

The is as quoted in NH studies which I posted. The British Acupuncturist A social ion has operated for some years under the B.M.A

 

[DrZoidberg]

It wasn't so much the NIH that legitimized the quackery of alternative medicine as it was the US Congress in the 1990's. As part of the deregulation derangement they passed a law forbidding the FDA from regulating alternative medicine. This law dovetailed nicely with the widespread belief that the drug companies were suppressing alternative medicine because it was effective and with the desire of the drug companies to be able to sell water at drug prices.

The rule is if alternative medicine was effective it would just be called medicine.

I didn't watch the video, I no longer hear well and prefer to read a transcript.

I have a theory on alternative medicine. I think it's practitioners talk more with patients than regular doctors. Patients feel more validated. And that's just the secret of why so many still like them. In regular medicine doctors just don't have the time to talk to patients, which doesn't add confidence in the patients and lots of placebo potential for healing is lost. The human contact dimension can't be understated. It's important. If doctors just did that I'm sure alt meds would just go away. But doctors won't because they don't have the time. So it'll stick around

 

[arkirk]

It wasn't so much the NIH that legitimized the quackery of alternative medicine as it was the US Congress in the 1990's. As part of the deregulation derangement they passed a law forbidding the FDA from regulating alternative medicine. This law dovetailed nicely with the widespread belief that the drug companies were suppressing alternative medicine because it was effective and with the desire of the drug companies to be able to sell water at drug prices.

The rule is if alternative medicine was effective it would just be called medicine.

I didn't watch the video, I no longer hear well and prefer to read a transcript.

I have a theory on alternative medicine. I think it's practitioners talk more with patients than regular doctors. Patients feel more validated. And that's just the secret of why so many still like them. In regular medicine doctors just don't have the time to talk to patients, which doesn't add confidence in the patients and lots of placebo potential for healing is lost. The human contact dimension can't be understated. It's important. If doctors just did that I'm sure alt meds would just go away. But doctors won't because they don't have the time. So it'll stick around

I think the medical profession is completely compromised by big pharma. No matter what is wrong with you there is something you ought to be taking, whether you need it or not. Big pharma is as guilty of pushing inappropriate treatment modalities (specifically drugs) as any of these so called quacks. Fitness and diet appear to have the greatest effect on health. Alernative meds in many cases should be less meds, more exercise and more engagement between those caring for ones health than can be obtained from a Medical Doctor. I am not poking fun at some things they do quite well, but in establishment of sufficient understanding of the patient and what makes him/her tick they are entirely deficient.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I have a theory on alternative medicine. I think it's practitioners talk more with patients than regular doctors. Patients feel more validated. And that's just the secret of why so many still like them. In regular medicine doctors just don't have the time to talk to patients, which doesn't add confidence in the patients and lots of placebo potential for healing is lost. The human contact dimension can't be understated. It's important. If doctors just did that I'm sure alt meds would just go away. But doctors won't because they don't have the time. So it'll stick around

I think the medical profession is completely compromised by big pharma. No matter what is wrong with you there is something you ought to be taking, whether you need it or not. Big pharma is as guilty of pushing inappropriate treatment modalities (specifically drugs) as any of these so called quacks. Fitness and diet appear to have the greatest effect on health. Alernative meds in many cases should be less meds, more exercise and more engagement between those caring for ones health than can be obtained from a Medical Doctor. I am not poking fun at some things they do quite well, but in establishment of sufficient understanding of the patient and what makes him/her tick they are entirely deficient.

Well in socialist Sweden patients have little power. Science and science advisors only have an influence on treatment. It's positives and negatives with this system. But you can't blame Big Pharma for a shit in Sweden. They have no power and no leverage.

Doctors still don't have time for patients though. So we've got the same problems with alt med.

 

[untermensche]

I think the medical profession is completely compromised by big pharma. No matter what is wrong with you there is something you ought to be taking, whether you need it or not. Big pharma is as guilty of pushing inappropriate treatment modalities (specifically drugs) as any of these so called quacks. Fitness and diet appear to have the greatest effect on health. Alernative meds in many cases should be less meds, more exercise and more engagement between those caring for ones health than can be obtained from a Medical Doctor. I am not poking fun at some things they do quite well, but in establishment of sufficient understanding of the patient and what makes him/her tick they are entirely deficient.

Well in socialist Sweden patients have little power. Science and science advisors only have an influence on treatment. It's positives and negatives with this system. But you can't blame Big Pharma for a shit in Sweden. They have no power and no leverage.

Doctors still don't have time for patients though. So we've got the same problems with alt med.

What do you mean, patients have little power?

Do they have the power to get a second opinion? Do they have the power to refuse treatment?