• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

The Alternative Medicine Racket 9/4/15 via Reason.com

Skippa

Anti-BS
Messages
841
I can't tell what the article's main angle is, tbh.

But it made me think... I wonder if this move to include more alternative therapies in medical establishments around the world, including the NIH, is an attempt to bring about more placebo remissions where they can.

I mean, we know it is unethical for doctors to knowingly prescribe placebos, but where all else has failed perhaps 'suggesting alternative therapies' is a soft way of inducing placebo in some patients?

Not saying I agree, just wonder if that is the thinking... Alternative therapies offer a backdoor to getting around placebo ethics?
 

IreneF

Senior Member
Messages
1,552
Location
San Francisco
Reason is a right-wing publication that wants a smaller government and opposes the ACA (Obamacare), so it would naturally want to call attention to gov't waste.

Personally I agree with the video. The NCCIH has done nothing more than than disprove complementary therapies, as Sen. Harkin pointed out, but very few people use those negative findings when making medical decisions.

The NIH has been receiving less and less money, and I would rather it go toward actual biomedical research instead of disproving treatments that are implausible on their face.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Very interesting article @ggingues.

This was quite astonishing. My bold.
:p:jaw-drop::woot:

The NIH has been receiving less and less money, and I would rather it go toward actual biomedical research instead of disproving treatments that are implausible on their face

Amen! Many people don't realize that negative studies are rarely published. This can lead to the erroneous conclusion that if these therapies don't work, then surely that information would be easy to find. The media doesn't always report negative studies unless it's a topic that will grab headlines.

More information on NCAM. Same blog but different issues. There are also links to information within the blog that might be worth a read.

Bold is mine.

"Senator Tom Harkin is very, very unhappy with NCCAM these days and has publicly said so recently, as pointed out by Lindsay Beyerstein, daughter of the late, great skeptical psychologist Barry Beyerstein. On Thursday, Harkin told a Senate panel, Integrative Care: A Pathway to a Healthier Nation, that he was disappointed that NCCAM had disproven too many alternative therapies. (His remarks begin about 17 minutes into the video on the webpage to which I linked
."
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.or...ppointed-that-nccam-hasnt-validated-more-cam/

Even the natives are revolting!:love:

Emmeline Edwards, Ph.D., Director, Division of Extramural Research at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) who was on the planning committee for the
National Research Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health (IRCIMH) had the following to say. Bold is mine.
The poster sessions offered a great opportunity to meet many new investigators engaged in exciting research in the field of integrative health. Reflecting on some highlights of these sessions, I was brought to the realization that we could strive forbetter balance in the science featured in the IRCIMH poster presentations. The clinical research posters outnumbered the basic research presentations 3:1, and research on mind and body strategies dominated the research landscape. One concern is that many clinical research projects were not developed from adequate mechanistic studies and, hence, the outcomes from these projects may not be very informative, provide a well-defined path for the next study, or give direction for future research programs.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.or...e-research-conference-disappoints-even-nccam/

Often such budget compromises are difficult, because there is no ready way to choose between two or more competing recipients of taxpayers’ money, each of which might be comparably worthy. Thus it is with a great sense of relief that in this case, we in the biomedical community can assure President Obama that no such dilemma exists. This is one of those occasional decisions that requires no hair-pulling whatsoever. The obvious solution is to defund the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which, at about $130 million/yr, would solve the problem of funding Alzheimer’s research and take the heat off other - programs
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.or...ill-the-money-come-from-thats-easy-the-nccam/

Barb
 
Last edited:

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
But it made me think... I wonder if this move to include more alternative therapies in medical establishments around the world, including the NIH, is an attempt to bring about more placebo remissions where they can.

There is no such thing as a 'placebo remission'. There is no 'powerful placebo effect'. The placebo effect is basically no longer focusing on symptoms - with small changes in neurotransmitters or endogenous opioids. Patients might report less pain as a result, but a placebo will not cure anything at all.
 

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
Zeitgeist? (the word itself, not a title):


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


"The book's [The Men who Stare at Goats] first five chapters examines the efforts of a handful of U.S. Army officers in the late 1970s and early '80s to exploit paranormal phenomena, New Age philosophy, and elements of the human potential movement to enhance U.S. military intelligence and operations..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats


"The original director of OAM was Joseph Jacobs, MD. He resigned in 1994... The present director, Wayne B. Jonas, MD, is a primary care physician and lieutenant colonel in the army...

As of this writing, Dr Jonas’s research output consists of 2 letters to the editor, 1 review article, 1 article in the Lancet, and 1 preliminary study on nicotinamide in osteoarthritis. Dr Jonas has penned a few reports on the mission and operations of the OAM and is the coauthor of a book, Healing with Homeopathy: The Complete Guide..."
http://www.sram.org/media/documents/uploads/article_pdfs/5-4-09.Halperin.pdf


The Gulf-War-and-Health Treatment for Chronic Multisymptom Illness (2013) committee included Wayne Jonas...
http://www.nap.edu/read/13539/chapter/1


May 2015: "Team [of US Army doctors] Hits Road to Promote Holistic Medicine"
http://www.army.mil/article/147939/Team_hits_road_to_promote_holistic_medicine/
 
Last edited:

*GG*

senior member
Messages
6,389
Location
Concord, NH
Reason is a right-wing publication that wants a smaller government and opposes the ACA (Obamacare), so it would naturally want to call attention to gov't waste.

I subscribe to Reason, it's in the middle of the road to me. They are for Open borders and Marijuana, I'm against the former, for the later, medical at least. I am fro Freedom and choice. Why should I have to buy health insurance?
Doesn't seem like the "free" country I grew up in!:wide-eyed:

Obamacare is a disaster, that from my reading will implode, unless the gov't/Politicians who are supposedly against it, keep funding it! (Obama was such a consensus builder, that not 1 Republican voted for it, no Major piece of legislation has ever been passed in the US, by such means).I'm not sure why anyone on this forum would want more Socialist Medicine, it has been a failure to our friends in Canada, UK and many countries in Europe. Look at the poor people locked up in psych wards (etc..), due to there compassionate stances. Not so funny! :bang-head:

GG

PS Lets not make this political, I know i am in the minority, but the USA was set up to protect speech and people who are in the minority! Because Democracies trend towards mob mentality!
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
I mean, we know it is unethical for doctors to knowingly prescribe placebos, but where all else has failed perhaps 'suggesting alternative therapies' is a soft way of inducing placebo in some patients?
Doctors deliberately and with full knowledge prescribe placebos a lot. They prescribe even more without knowing they do. Indeed, psychiatrists in particular defend the placebo effect, and many acknowledge they use it a lot.