The politics of alternative medicine: reaction - and bad science - Letters To The Editor - Letter to the Editor

I read with interest the article by Kimball Atwood about the "Ongoing Problem with the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine" (September/October 2003). Naturally I have long been a supporter of CSICOP and its efforts to expose fraud. And I have no reason to doubt what Atwood says in his article. However, I would like to caution that we as skeptics should not throw the baby out with the bath water. Just because the NCCAM has funded bad science doesn't mean that research into alternative medicine should cease, or that some alternative medicine might not have valid claims. Many practices now accepted were once thought crazy by the medical mainstream.

The NCCAM could be very useful, and might work with the aims of CSICOP instead of against them. Perhaps a cooperative, instead of an adversarial, relationship could be developed, and the skeptics of the world could then guide the NCCAM. One complaint CSICOP has made about alternative medicine is that its practices are not based on real, carefully constructed, double-blind research. This is not just because practitioners are bad scientists, but also because there is little profit in researching things like vitamins and nutrition. But quality research should be done, and NCCAM certainly has the money to do the research. It would be more in the interest of us all if CSICOP and NCCAM could work together to sift the good science from the pseudoscience.

Also, I would like to see mainstream medicine given equal investigative time. We know the following about the medical industry:

* it is not only a scientific body, but a set of social institutions, which are definitely not objective, but have their own agenda;

* that agenda contains a systemic conflict of interests that works against patients;

* that agenda has nothing to do with keeping people healthy, but with treating symptoms after disease has appeared. Healthy people do not consume medical services.

* it spends billions on advertising, with the result that most doctors get most of their information about drugs from drug salesmen; researchers have been known to cook research results, and the FDA (for example) does not do its own research but accepts the research of the people who have a vested interest in favorable results; drug reactions kill an enormous number of people each year.

If we don't accept the assumptions of fringe medicine on faith, we shouldn't accept the mainstream assumptions either. Mainstream medicine is much more powerful and has the potential to damage people much more than all the herbalists combined, and therefore it should be an important target for our investigations. Any investigation of the politics and economics of alternative medicine cries out for a similar analysis of mainstream medicine, and I hope that SKEPTICAL INQUIRER will tackle that soon.

Keep up the good work.

Myra Jones

Bradenton, Florida

Thanks to Dr. Kimball Atwood for keeping the heat turned up on the profit-driven mavens of so-called "alternative" medicine. In his "dishonor roll" of irresponsible elected officials (Sen. Tom Harkin, Rep. Dan Burton) who lobby for bogus products and enterprises, Dr. Atwood should have included Senator Orrin Hatch, thanks to whose largesse the purveyors of junk "medicine" have for years enjoyed a unique ability to market their products virtually flee from government oversight.

It's unfortunate that very few members of the drug-buying public understand the difference between anecdotal evidence and scientific (double-blind) testing, and why the latter is the only acceptable proof that a product will do what its manufacturers claim. My hometown newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, uses a reasonable approach in this area: while the paper's medical reporters do not take a stand per se against "alternative" medicine, they are always careful to point out whether or not a given remedy has been tested according to accepted medical protocol, This policy should be a requirement of all media.

Bonnie Sloane

Los Angeles, California

In the spring of 1954 I met Dr. Gerson and his wife and daughter. Besides the coffee enemas he also gave large doses of calcium. His charges had to be high because the stench of the feces was so bad the toilet area had to be extensively redone. He showed me a blank page in a medical journal that was to have his article but was stricken at the last minute because a cure would hurt the income of doctors. He also showed me x-ray evidence of a cure and offered information that he almost saved Ring Lardner's son from cancer but the establishment took him away before he could cure him. He died soon after.

A short time later I visited my uncle, a GP who explained to me the concept of critical thinking. Dr. Gerson may have thought he was not a fraud, but his therapy was fraudulent. Physicians really do want a cure for cancer. And blank pages are common in books and journals.

Four years later (before graduation from medical school) I wrote a library research paper on EDTA, The final impression was that chelating did lower blood cholesterol in familial hypercholestremia but did not prevent arteriosclerosis. I did not save this paper because I thought all the evidence against would have thrown it in the garbage pit by now, I guess I didn't realize the power of the screwball.