The Institute of Medicine “CAM” Committee Report: Stacked Deck of Advocates Want More
NCAHF News Release, January 12, 2005 An outside committee dominated by “CAM” advocates with personal interests in promoting so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” has issued a report under the banner of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The committee was charged to report on “CAM” use, but instead chose to use this forum to reissue a thinly-veiled version of the report of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy, which died two years ago on the desk of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. No one elected to the prestigious IOM practices “CAM” or has been recognized for “CAM” research. Neither the IOM nor its parent organization, the National Academy of Sciences, has endorsed the report. So-called “complementary and alternative medicine” is …
Continue Reading >Consumer Group Labels White House Panel’s Proposals “Irrational” and “Contrived”
The National Council Against Health Fraud Wants the Bush Administration to Reject the Recommendations of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP)NCAHF News Release, March 28, 2002.The National Council Against Health Fraud, Inc. (NCAHF) has concluded that policies prescribed in the report issued this week by the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP) would lead to widespread adoption of unproven, disproven, and irrational methods and would cost the American public billions of dollars and thousands of human lives. After two years of study the Commission provided a blueprint for a costly bureaucracy to promote “CAM” (a marketing term for complementary and alternative medicine), which it failed to define and which functions as a marketing term for quackery. …
Continue Reading >Insiders Blast Report
The National Council Against Health Fraud Wants the Bush Administration to Reject the Recommendations of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP)NCAHF News Release, March 25, 2002.The National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) wants the Bush Administration to disclaim and reject the final report of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (“CAM”) Policy, because the Commission has failed in its mission. Its final report does not appropriately assess “CAM” methods, lacks objectivity, and was principally the opinions of Commission leaders who revised it without most of the members ever seeing the final edition. The report is an unqualified endorsement of so-called “CAM,” a “New-Age” marketing term which falsely proposes that untested and unscientific methods of care are equivalent …
Continue Reading >The WHCCAMP “Minority Report”
In March 2000, President Clinton announced the creation of a White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP) to provide a report to the President on “legislative and administrative recommendations for assuring that public policy maximizes the benefits to Americans of complementary and alternative medicine.” Nearly all of the Commissioners are philosophically aligned and economically involved with the so-called “CAM” movement. Few knowledgeable critics were appointed. The Commission worked for two years and submitted its final report to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson in March 2002. The report, which represents the views of 17 or the 19 Commissioners, recommends across-the-board “integration” of “CAM” into government health agencies and the nation’s medical, medical education, research, and insurance systems — a situation that would promote unscientific …
Continue Reading >White House Commission Fails, Lacking Objectivity; Leadership Hijacks Report; Members Speak Out against Recommendations
The National Council Against Health Fraud Wants the Bush Administration to Reject the Recommendations of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP)NCAHF News Release, March 13, 2002.The National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) wants the Bush Administration to disclaim and reject the final report of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (“CAM”) Policy, because the Commission has failed in its mission. Its final report does not appropriately assess “CAM” methods, lacks objectivity, and was principally the opinions of Commission leaders who revised it without most of the members ever seeing the final edition. The report is an unqualified endorsement of so-called “CAM,” a “New-Age” marketing term which falsely proposes that untested and unscientific methods of care are equivalent …
Continue Reading >Anti-Science Commission Wastes Taxpayer Dollars, Recommends More Waste, Threatens Public Health
The National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) wants the Bush Administration to Reject the Recommendations of a White House Commission whose final report is imminent.NCAHF News Release, March 5, 2002.The White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP) was appointed during the closing days of the Clinton Administration to make recommendations “assuring that public policy maximizes the benefits to Americans of complementary and alternative medicine.” The Commission is expected to issue its final report this month. Its draft report indicates that it will recommend expanded federal spending and other policy initiatives that would foster irrational methods and encouraging treatments that have already been proven ineffective or have no established therapeutic value. The report is based on “bogus science” and may lead to thousands …
Continue Reading >PBS Was Correct to Critize Chiropractic Pseudoscience: A Response to the American Chiropractic Association
David Ramey, D.V.M Daryl D. Wills, D.C., president of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) has complained about a program broadcast June 4, 2002, by Scientific American Frontiers and posted to the SAF Web site. The program, which was outstanding, acknowledged that spinal manipulation might be useful for acute low back pain. But it also noted that chiropractic’s basic theory is nonsense and that neck manipulation can be dangerous. The producer’s response and another rebuttal by NCAHF president Robert Baratz are posted elsewhere on this site. In his open letter to PBS, “Setting the Record Straight,” ACA president Daryl Wills chastises the broadcasting company for ignoring “the scientific foundation of the chiropractic profession.” He then launches into an inaccurate and selective rebuttal. Dr. …
Continue Reading >PBS Broadcast Angers Chiropractors
Well-reasoned criticism of chiropractic quackery has triggered an angry response from the profession. The criticism took place during a segment (“Adjusting the joints”) of Scientific American Frontiers (SAF) that was broadcast beginning June 4th on Public Broadcasting System stations throughout the country.and can be viewed on the SAF Web site. The program acknowledged that spinal manipulation might be useful for acute low back pain [1]. But it also noted that chiropractic’s basic theory is nonsense and that neck manipulation can be dangerous. The parts that upset the chiropractors are summarized on the SAF Web site: Invented by Daniel Palmer in 1895, chiropractic aims to correct blocked nerves — what Palmer claimed were the cause of all disease — by re-aligning the spine. But as former …
Continue Reading >My Reply to the American Chiropractic Association
Robert S. Baratz, M.D., D.D.S, Ph.D. Daryl D. Wills, D.C., president of the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) has complained about a program broadcast June 4, 2002, by Scientific American Frontiers and posted to the SAF Web site. The program, which was outstanding, acknowledged that spinal manipulation might be useful for acute low back pain. But it also noted that chiropractic’s basic theory is nonsense and that neck manipulation can be dangerous. Here is Dr. Wills’s letter with my comments in bracketed red type. The producer’s response and another rebuttal by Dr. David Ramey are posted elsewhere on this Web site. June 7, 2002 Pat Mitchell, President & CEO Public Broadcasting Service 1320 Braddock Place Alexandria, VA 22314 Dear Ms. Mitchell: As president …
Continue Reading >
