Excerpt
Here's the deal. Some years back, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) helped set up the National Center on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). The whole idea of setting up such an agency is a bit quixotic---after all, the National Institutes of Health already study health science. As my colleagues and I have written many times before, the very idea of the agency seems ridiculous. Many, many studies have been funded which fail basic tests of plausibility and ethical propriety. Also, a huge percentage of the studies funded fail to ever publish their results. Still, some studies have been published, and more often than not, they find that the "alternative" modality being studied fails to behave better than placebo. That's probably the sole redeeming quality of the agency, but not enough to keep it open, as these studies could have been done under the auspices of the NIH.
It turns out that Senator Harkin agrees with me on one point: NCCAM is failing to validate many alternative modalities. The difference is that I find it heartening and Harkin finds it disturbing:"One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short. It think quite frankly that in this center and in the office previously before it, most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving."(from last week's hearings, time marker approx. 17:20)
Well, at least he's honest. He comes right out and bemoans the fact that science hasn't upheld his quasi-religious medical beliefs. He just doesn't get it. If you choose to investigate a scientific question, you have to be prepared for "bad news." You don't get to decide the outcome before the fact.
But Harkin makes his goals very clear, from his prepared statement, to the "experts" from whom he took testimony.
Harkin makes clear that these hearing are meant to guide health care reform---this isn't some show hearing. Let's start with his prepared statement, and I'll just touch on a few highlights."It is time to end the discrimination against alternative health care practices.
"It is time for America's health care system to emphasize coordination and continuity of care, patient-centeredness, and prevention.
"And it is time to adopt an integrative approach that takes advantage of the very best scientifically based medicines and therapies, whether conventional or alternative.
This familiar trope is right out of the Gary Null playbook. There is no "discrimination" against alternative health care. In fact, alternative health care enjoys a lack of oversight and regulation inconceivable in any real health field. Still, many doctors (such as myself) do scorn altmed---because it is a fairy tale. There is no alternative medicine; only medicine that has been proved to work, and medicine that has not. Then he links his fantasy "discrimination" with reasonable goals, such as coordination and continuity of care, making it seem as if the "mainstream" medical community would throw out basic tenets of medicine along with radical cult practices, such as homeopathy. And his stated wish to take advantage of the best in science-based therapies is belied by his complaint that NCCAM has failed to validate his pet alternative practices.
Bold emphasis mine
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