Science progress is also about disproving other ideas. The National Institutes of Health is a research organization and it should research alternative medicine. A 121 million dollars may sound like a lot but it is less than .5% of the total National Institutes of Health budget. Besides there are a lot of other things the government wastes money on.

Do you even pay taxes?

Prove that people are specifically dying as a result of specific AMA-unethical approaches, and maybe Congress will vote to stop funding research into them.

If they aren’t dying, or being put into clearly-evident-to-them-and-everyone-around-them dangerous situations, allow them the right to use the approach of their choice.

2:56 — “Besides there are a lot of other things the government wastes money on.”

That’s no reason to encourage it. Government research dollars should not go to any project or practitioner with an outside chance of producing results—it should be funneled to the most promising and potentially beneficial research.

Exactly- science IS about disproving other ideas. Supporters of alternative medicine contend that they shouldn’t be held to the same standards of modern science and medicine.

By asking for exemption from the peer-reviewed, double blind process, funding alternative medicine is just a waste of money.

And just because the government wastes money in other sectors, this doesn’t give the NIH the right to waste money on this kind of quackery. $121 mil might be a small percentage of the NIH budget, but it’s still $121 mil.

-Corey Sheahan

I think you need to look up all the studies that have taken place through the NIH testing the efficacy of TCM (including acupuncture and herbal medicine) You should do your research

I can’t believe you wasted your own time writing this article. There are a lot of things that would have been a better use of time, like smoking crack or playing GameCube.

Corey,

Maybe you should consider sticking to commentary on history and economics because your knowledge about “complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)” is lacking.

I hereby reiterate the suggestion above to do some reading of the existing research available through NIH and CAM (nccam.nih.gov). There are literally hundreds of scientific studies which provide solid evidence that therapies such as acupuncture and magnetic therapy can be effective.

The “energy medicine” that you deride would include therapies such as magnetic field therapy (PEMF) and light therapy. You must’ve been hiding under a rock for the past year not to have heard about the many benefits of “energy medicine” which would include SUNLIGHT (i.e. electromagnetic waves). Get out from under that rock and get some sun or else you’ll likely develop a vitamin D deficiency. Look it up.

You’re also welcome to read some of the articles I posted myself in the Articles section of Wellness5.com.

None of the above should be construed as an attack. My goal is simply to provide some education and to encourage you to do some honest, objective investigation before publishing this type of defamatory article in a public forum.

Keep Well, Rob Vanden Heuvel robvh(at)wellness5(dot)com

P.S. If you believe in the value of vitamin antioxidants, then you must also believe in the value of alkaline food/water as well as negative ions (so-called “alternative medicine”). Or do I need to give you a chemistry lesson to show you that some of the very same chemical processes are taking place? I’d be glad to.

Uh, I did my research.

Here’s what I found:

-The study results on acupuncture varied depending on the countries in which they were conducted: in Asia, acupuncture had the best results. In our own superstitious country, the results were less promising, but still ambiguous. In Europe, the results were mostly negative.

This tells us that these studies are probably not being conducted scientifically (i.e., double-blind with control groups).

Furthermore, ‘professional’ acupuncture and fake acupuncture return similar ‘results.’ Conclusion: acupuncture is mostly placebo.

11:04 gets it- the true cost of alternative medicine isn’t that it is the cause of negative health outcomes (though it sometimes is), but rather it robs more promising research of the necessary time and money for the advancement of legitimate health care.

-Corey Sheahan

It is not the governments place to spend it citizens tax dollars on research.

Think we need more medical research? There are thousands of charitable organizations that would love your donation. It is amazing how much more is done when research dollars aren’t filtered through the inefficiencies of government bureaucracy.

More promising research like the drugs and surgery that combined kill hundreds of thousands of people a year in North America? THAT promising research?

Never mind that a simple $60 pair of magnetic insoles have helped thousands of people with nerve issues in their feet to recover with no side effects and thereby avoid lower limb amputation. That’s not “promising”. Oh, and that was a double-blind, placebo controlled study right here in North America.

It sounds like you did your research at such “pillars of science” as Snopes, Quackwatch, or Skeptic Magagzine! I hope you didn’t simply Google “alternative medicine scam” to formulate an unbiased point of view. Please visit the NIH and NCCAM websites and do some more research.

“A lifestyle deficient in adequate amounts of man-made pharmaceutical drugs” is NOT the root cause of ANY disease (though I’m sure Pfizer and Merck lobbyists are working to change that). Instead, it is a departure from natural foods and environments that is making us sick in record numbers.

It’s in the public’s best interests to validate the value of reintroducing proper nutrition, clean air, healthful water, quality sleep and exercise into everyone’s lives. There’s no money in proving that veggies help cure disease because you can’t patent it. So the only way much of this research will happen is if the government finances it. Sadly, this is because of the horrible bureaucracy known as the FDA, ironically of its own making.

I’d like to see all taxes gathered from pharmaceutical company profits put toward quality research into CAM. Then we might achieve some balance and maybe even avoid becoming a society of toxic pill poppers.

Keep Well, Rob Vanden Heuvel robvh(at)wellness5(dot)com

I love the fact that this guy is standing in front of a Coca Cola machine. Tell him to look me up when he gets diabetes. I will put him up on a whole foods diet.

Jonathan Burgess, MD Harvard Medical School

Do they teach logic at HMS? I drink diet soda. (Maybe diet soda causes diabetes as well- I don’t know. Point is, I watch what I eat/drink. Save the lecture, Doc).

-Corey Sheahan

Rob- you make some good points. Proper diet and exercise are undeniably important when it comes to proper health.

However, you can’t possibly tell me that acupuncture is based on anything but hocus pocus. Just read it’s description on the NIH CAM website. Here’s an excerpt:

“In TCM, the body is seen as a delicate balance of two opposing and inseparable forces: yin and yangThe concept of two opposing yet complementary forces described in traditional Chinese medicine. Yin represents cold, slow, or passive aspects of the person, while yang represents hot, excited, or active aspects. A major theory is that health is achieved through balancing yin and yang and disease is caused by an imbalance leading to a blockage in the flow of qi.. Yin represents the cold, slow, or passive principle, while yang represents the hot, excited, or active principle. According to TCM, health is achieved by maintaining the body in a “balanced state”; disease is due to an internal imbalance of yin and yang. This imbalance leads to blockage in the flow of qiIn traditional Chinese medicine, the vital energy or life force proposed to regulate a person’s spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical health and to be influenced by the opposing forces of yin and yang. (vital energy) along pathways known as meridians. Qi can be unblocked, according to TCM, by using acupuncture at certain points on the body that connect with these meridians. Sources vary on the number of meridians, with numbers ranging from 14 to 20.”

Active principle? Qi? Yin/Yang? What is this, the 18th century? Not to sound like John Stossel, but give me a break.

-Corey Sheahan

Hi Corey,

I’m completely with you in that I don’t buy into the “hocus pocus” “explanations” that have been concocted to explain how or why acupuncture and magnetic therapies work. That’s why it’s very encouraging to see Western medicine investigating these modalities using our orbust scientific investigation methods.

There are thousands of years and millions of success stories that tell us that SOMETHING positive is happening when certain “alternative therapies” are applied. It would be great know WHY that is. That’s what Western medicine can do to everyone’s benefit, to legitimize the effective approaches and even further them through a better understanding of the mechanisms of action.

Sadly, the evidence of the past several decades suggests that when a mechanism of action is understood, the ultimate goal is the development of an expensive and recurring drug or treatment to improve the medical company’s bottom line. However, there are also other organizations and companies out there (two of which I respect and advocate) which aim to stick to the natural approach rather than trying to “outsmart God and nature”.

Keep Well, Rob Vanden Heuvel robvh(at)wellness5(dot)com

P.S. I highly recommend that you Google artificial sweeteners and diet soda. The evidence suggests that these sweeteners are harmful excitotoxins and do not lead to weight loss (quite the opposite in fact). The presence of benzene, a carcinogen, is another reason to steer clear of soda… or “pop” as it’s known here in Canada. Keep well!

I really wish that the Anti-CAM people would stop including Herbal Medicine alongside ‘energy therapies’ with an unexplained (and/or highly unlikely) mode of action like reflexology, magnet therapy and homeopathy.

Pharmacognosy (the study of Botanical and Herbal Medicine) is a rigid, scientifically robust and very serious field in both research and practice that deserves much more respect. It’s biochemistry plain and simple - not peculiar energies or forces.

The fact that some western governments allow everyone and anyone (with absolutely no medical training) to supply and prescribe natural products of dubious quality and efficacy should not reflect badly on those of us who study hard for 5 long years to properly diagnose patients’ illnesses and prescribe only pharmaceutical grade botanicals.

And it’s utter codswollop to suggest that none of it’s been tested properly.