$1.4 BILLION spent on woo-woo research: Your tax dollars at work.

[Boston_Chemist]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-nccam-overview-20111211,0,1371814,full.story

"Thanks to a $374,000 taxpayer-funded grant, we now know that inhaling lemon and lavender scents doesn't do a lot for our ability to heal a wound. With $666,000 in federal research money, scientists examined whether distant prayer could heal AIDS. It could not.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine also helped pay scientists to study whether squirting brewed coffee into someone's intestines can help treat pancreatic cancer (a $406,000 grant) and whether massage makes people with advanced cancer feel better ($1.25 million). The coffee enemas did not help. The massage did.

NCCAM also has invested in studies of various forms of energy healing, including one based on the ideas of a self-described "healer, clairvoyant and medicine woman" who says her children inspired her to learn to read auras. The cost for that was $104,000."

The culprit is the so-called "National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine", or NCCAM.

[laconicsax]

1. The real tragedy here...

None of the negative results will sway sCAM advocates. sCAM is a religion with millions of faithful.

[Boston_Chemist]

2. $666000 to see if prayer can cure AIDS.

*pulls hair out in anger and frustration*

[FiveGoodMen]

12. Interesting that the prayer study resulted in a 666

[trotsky]

11. Yes, precisely.

You could do every study in the world showing it's crap, spend billions of dollars doing so, and you won't convince a single disciple.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

3. It would be amusing under other circumstances

As it is, it infuriates me because that money could be going to legitimate research searching for real cures using real science. Saving lives and enriching the standard of living for those who ail.

Somewhere along the line, people started treating all ideas as equally worthwhile (or worthless depending on your view). So the anti-vaxers have equal standing with scientists and CAM promoters get to share the stage with medical researchers who do REAL work and acupuncturists are given the same esteem as doctors. Stupidity and ignorance are seen to be desirable traits while those who are more intellectual and reasonable are attacked and derided.

Hey National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine: go fuck yourselves. Really, I mean it. Go. Fuck. Yourselves. Just because it makes you feel better doesn't mean it cures you, and just because it's "natural" doesn't mean it's somehow inherently better.

Jesus H. Christ, the whole thing pisses me off!

[Bolo Boffin]

4. NCCAM is responsible for less than one-half of 1% of the NIH budget.

And it deals with a $34 billion industry. As far as I can see uses strict scientific testing (at least under President Obama) and has always concluded that the alternative treatment is no better than placebo, if it is even that good.

On the other hand, there's Tim Minchin's deserves-to-be-famous quote: "Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine."

[TheWraith]

5. The problem isn't the center--it's the fact that it's run by believers.

These studies are being done to try and prove things work, even when they're obviously completely insane.

If the disproval of effectiveness were more widely disseminated and also made sure that "alternative medicine" could no longer offer those "treatments" as being somehow valid, I might see more value to this.

[HuckleB]

6. Can you please source your numbers?

Both the percentage and the "$34 billion industry" numbers?

Also, what percentage of research funding goes to NCCAM? And does it matter if it's small, if it's wasted on implausible treatments?

[Bolo Boffin]

7. The OP article.

I don't see demonstrating quack claims to have no more effectiveness as placebos to be wasted effort.

[HuckleB]

8. One cannot prove a negative.

Plausibility must be a consideration in science. We are wasting money that could go to research that might actually improve health and save lives.

That's as unethical as it gets, IMO.

[Bolo Boffin]

9. Of course one can. It depends on the negative being expressed.

And the one I stated - that the remedy is no more effective than a placebo - is quite easily proven by good experimentation. If you prefer, state it as the remedy being only as effective as the placebo. Whatever.

Plausibility is in the eye of the beholder, especially when it comes to medicine. A $34 billion industry has got a lot of apparent plausibility going for it, and spending a few million knocking the plausibility out of that industry sounds like freeing up some of those billions to go towards more effective medical treatments.

[Taverner]

10. I dunno - all these studies have been great ammo against woo woo

The prayer one, for example, is one I get to cite a lot, talking to fundie members of the family