US Government + Tax Payers support woo medicine? Homeopathy?!?!?!

[DRBUZZ0]

Get a load of this page I found while doing some searching:

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/homeopathy/

Questions and answers about homeopathy is generally factually accurate, but highly misleading. It gives the impression that homeopathy is safe and effective and has the support of the NIH.

It's part of this page which contains more woo than you can imagine if you dig deep:

http://nccam.nih.gov/


So apparently this is the "alternative" research and information branch of the National Institutes Of Health (NIH). The NIH, found here: http://www.nih.gov/ is an independent agency of the department of health and human services and was an organization I always thought was pretty much on the up-and-up. It funds research and also has a lot of good public information. The National Cancer Institute and other well known groups work under the NIH. Tends to be pretty mainstream.

They offer a good deal of government funding to research and public information programs. They tend to be a decent standard barer for US health policy.


However the "alternative" branch of this is ripe of woo. Bad woo. It goes beyond semi-mainstream alternative info, such as massages to help with muscle problems or nutritional stuff. No, it's got everything from homeopathy to touch therapy information and "research"


Given this is tax-payer funded and that it's part of what is supposed to be a science-based agency, which oversees US health policy, I find this outrageous...

[Blue Wode]

Given this is tax-payer funded and that it's part of what is supposed to be a science-based agency, which oversees US health policy, I find this outrageous...


You’re not the only one.

See here:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1681736

and here:
http://quackwatch.com/07PoliticalActivities/iomreport.html

[JJM]

Get a load of this page I found while doing some searching:

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/homeopathy/

{snip} Given this is tax-payer funded and that it's part of what is supposed to be a science-based agency, which oversees US health policy, I find this outrageous...It is outrageous. US Senator Tom Harkin (and Congressman Dan (The Loose Cannon) Burton are the prime promoters of woo in our national legislature. They have a tight grip on the NIH budget, and they used it to force the NIH to promote quackery.

Thanks to them, today, the NIH has a web-site that provides "reliable medical" info- it promotes links to quack sites. When the National Council Against Health Fraud complained, the NIH removed the link to their (NCAHF) site!! Edited to add: And PubMed has been forced to include quack literature in its index. Therefore, today searches on PubMed retrieve fancfiul nonsense.

In addition, the NCCAM provides funding to medical schools that promote quackery, and some of the best schools are bellying up to the trough. I wish I could provide links; but I am in transition between computers. Try googling "respectful insolence" and searching there for 'Georgetown'.

[Blue Wode]

Some criticism of NCCAM in this week’s British Medical Journal:


(3) Expert welcomes withdrawing of funding for complementary medicine
(Letter: What to do about CAM?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/335/7623/736-a

The withdrawing of funding from homoeopathy in the NHS is welcomed in a letter to this week's BMJ.

In the UK National Health Service, primary care trusts are, quite rightly, withdrawing funding from homoeopathy, writes David Colquhoun, Professor of Pharmacology at University College London.

"Something has been done, at last," he says, following news that Tunbridge Wells Homoeopathic Hospital will close and the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital is in great danger.

He also supports the view that the US Congress should stop funding the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).
He points to an article about NCCAM1, which states: "After ten years of existence and over $200 million in expenditures, it has not proved effectiveness for any 'alternative' method. It has added evidence of ineffectiveness of some methods that we knew did not work before NCCAM was formed."

That is something that could be done, he says. The total funding so far for NCCAM approaches $1 billion.




More generalised comments from the Deputy Editor:


Good manners in the 21st century apparently means suspending judgment, according each viewpoint equal respect. But it's "a dangerous error to conclude . . . that all imaginable views are equally deserving," cautions Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, about politicians' use of science. They, and by extension the rest of us, shouldn't choose "which, if any, scientific view to adopt and which to discard, much as they might choose one bunch of flowers over another." Science "is about how the world is, not about what suits our prejudices"

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/335/7623/0?etoc

[Blue Wode]

Just issued by NCCAM...


For Immediate Release
Friday, June 6, 2008

Time To Talk About CAM:
Health Care Providers and Patients Need To Ask and Tell

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has launched Time to Talk, an educational campaign to encourage patients — particularly those age 50 or older — and their health care providers to openly discuss the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM ). CAM is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine, such as herbal supplements, meditation, naturopathy, and acupuncture.

-snip-

As the Federal government's lead agency for scientific research on CAM, NCCAM is committed to educating both consumers and health care providers about the importance of discussing CAM and providing evidence-based information to help with health care decision making.

Read on…
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jun2008/nccam-06.htm




A step in the right direction? Or could NCCAM’s commitment to “providing evidence-based information to help with health care decision making” simply be a way for it to disseminate more misinformation about CAM?