November 11th, 2010 by Kimball Atwood IV, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
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If you go to the website of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), you’ll find that one of its self-identified roles is to “provide information about CAM.” NCCAM Director Josephine Briggs is proud to assert that the website fulfills this expectation. As many readers will recall, three of your bloggers visited the NCCAM last April, after having received an invitation from Dr. Briggs. We differed from her in our opinion of the website: One of our suggestions was that the NCCAM could do a better job providing American citizens with useful and accurate information about “CAM.”
We cited, among several examples, the website offering little response to the dangerous problem of widespread misinformation about childhood immunizations. As Dr. Novella subsequently reported, it seemed that we’d scored a point on that one:
…Dr. Briggs did agree that anti-vaccine sentiments are common in the world of CAM and that the NCCAM can do more to combat this. Information countering anti-vaccine propaganda would be a welcome addition to the NCCAM site.
In anticipation of SBM’s Vaccine Awareness Week, I decided to find out whether such a welcome addition has come to fruition. The short answer: Nope. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
July 28th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Health Policy, Quackery Exposed
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With healthcare costs spiraling out of control, and major rationing efforts under consideration – can we really afford to allow purveyors of pseudoscience to use up scarce Medicare/Medicaid resources? It’s hard to imagine that Obama’s administration would approve of extending “health professional” status to people with an online degree and a belief in magic – but a new amendment would allow just that. What happened to our “restoring science to its rightful place” and why are we emphasizing comparative effectiveness research if we will use tax dollars to pay for things that are known to be ineffective?
I hope someone reads and removes this amendment pronto (h/t to David Gorski at Science Based Medicine):
Here’s the language that Sen. Harkin has slipped into the 615 page Senate version of the health care reform bill:
HEALTH PROFESSIONALS.—The term “health professionals” includes—
(A) dentists, dental hygienists, primary 25 care providers, specialty physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, psychologists and other behavioral and mental health professionals, social workers, physical therapists, public health professionals, clinical pharmacists, allied health professionals, chiropractors, community health workers, school nurses, certified nurse midwives, podiatrists, licensed complementary and alternative medicine providers, and integrative health practitioners;
Background Reading:
What Do Chiropractors Believe?
Acupuncture Doesn’t Work
Should Naturopaths Be Allowed To Prescribe Medication?
Homeopathy ER
