Results for: NCCAM or NCCIH

NCCIH Logo defined

The NCCIH embraces the quackery that is “functional medicine”

The process of "integrating" quackery with medicine continues apace as the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health embraces the quackery that is "functional medicine."

/ September 30, 2024
NCCIH frameworks

NCCIH Strategic Plan 2021⁠–⁠2025: Meet the new plan, same as the old plan…?

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health recently released its latest 5 year strategic plan. It's basically the same as the last strategic plan, but with one new addition. It's not really a new addition, but it signals a resurrection of an old trope about "integrating" quackery with science-based medicine.

/ June 28, 2021
NCCIH

NCCIH has a new director, and she’s a true believer in acupuncture.

Helene Langevin has been named the new director of the National Center for Complemenary and Integrative Health. Given her history of dodgy acupuncture research, my prediction is that the quackery will flow again at NCCIH, the way it did in the 1990s when Tom Harkin zealously protected it from any attempt to impose scientific rigor.

/ September 3, 2018

NCCIH funds sauna “detoxification” study at naturopathic school

It is no secret that we at SBM are not particularly fond of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine (NCCIH; formerly, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine). We’ve lamented NCCIH’s use of limited public funds for researching implausible treatments, the unwarranted luster NIH/NCCIH funding bestows on quack institutions, the lack of useful research it has produced, and its...

/ September 15, 2016

“Non-pharmacological treatments for pain” ≠ CAM, no matter how much NCCIH wishes it so

When it comes to pain, in the mythos of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM), which in recent years has morphed into "integrative medicine," anything that isn't a drug is automatically rebranded as CAM, whether it's in any way "alternative" or not.

/ September 5, 2016

NCCIH Strategic Plan 2016-2021, or: Let’s try to do some real science for a change

It’s no secret that we at Science-Based Medicine (SBM) are not particularly fond of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). Formerly known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and before that the Office of Alternative Medicine, NCCIH has been the foremost government agency funding research into quackery for the last 24 years, and, of course,...

/ April 4, 2016

NCCIH and the true evolution of integrative medicine

There can be no doubt that, when it comes to medicine, The Atlantic has an enormous blind spot. Under the guise of being seemingly “skeptical,” the magazine has, over the last few years, published some truly atrocious articles about medicine. I first noticed this during the H1N1 pandemic, when The Atlantic published an article lionizing flu vaccine “skeptic” Tom Jefferson, who, unfortunately,...

/ June 29, 2015
Trouble in Paradise

Trouble in (MAHA) paradise?

Even as President Donald Trump is inaugurated today and his pick for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. prepares to face confirmation hearings, there is trouble in "make America healthy" paradise.

/ January 20, 2025
National Institutes of Health (NIH).

RFK Jr. vs. the NIH: Say goodbye to the greatest engine of biomedical research ever created

President-Elect Donald Trump has nominated antivaccine activist and anti-pharma conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. I've written about the damage he will do, if confirmed, to the CDC and FDA, but what about NIH, the greatest engine of biomedical research ever?

/ November 18, 2024
Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (RFK Jr.)

RFK Jr.’s MAHA manifesto: How not to “make America healthy again”

Shortly after endorsing Donald Trump for President, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed he and Trump will "make America healthy again." His proposals to do that range from semi-reasonable to outright quackery.

/ September 9, 2024