Results for: "Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health"

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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

Bait and switch in Oregon: Substituting quackery for opioids for Medicaid patients

The Oregon Health Authority is on the verge of passing a radical policy that would require chronic pain patients receiving Medicaid to have their opioids tapered to zero while covering "nonpharmacologic treatments for pain" that include primarily acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, and other "alternative" treatments. Not surprisingly, the Oregon Chronic Pain Task Force, which is responsible for this proposed infliction of quackery...

/ August 30, 2018
Avalanche

Another pebble in the quackademic integrative avalanche

We've documented the infiltration of quackery into academic medicine through the "integration" of mystical and prescientific treatment modalities into medicine. Here, we look at a pebble in the quackademic avalanche. Is it too late for the pebbles to vote?

/ April 9, 2018
Deepak Chopra

Quackademic medicine and the delusion of being “science-based”

Last week, I was interviewed by the a reporter from the Georgetown student newsletter about its integrative medicine program. It got me to thinking how delusion that one's work is science-based can lead to collaborations with New Age "quantum" mystics like Deepak Chopra.

/ February 12, 2018

The effort of integrative medicine advocates to co-opt the opioid crisis to claim non pharmacological treatments for pain as solely theirs continues apace

Last week, I wrote about how advocates for quackery were trying, and succeeding, at persuading state Medicaid agencies to pay for acupuncture for pain. This week, I discuss how they are promoting the integration of quackery with medicine. In this case, they are promoting a white paper and trying to influence the AHRQ.

/ January 29, 2018

Damn the evidence and regulations: VA goes full speed ahead with medical pseudoscience

The VA recently mandated inclusion of acupuncture, reiki, reflexology and other CAM in veterans medical benefits and will require that they be offered at VA medical facilities, ignoring the lack of evidence and federal rules on what medical benefits can be covered.

/ December 7, 2017

Integrative medicine advocates react to criticisms of the Samuelis’ $200 million gift to UC-Irvine

Last month, Susan and Henry Samueli donated $200 million to the University of California, Irvine to promote integrative medicine. We were pleasantly surprised by the unflattering coverage in the press of the gift. We were unpleasantly unsurprised by the reaction of integrative medicine advocates to the criticism.

/ October 16, 2017

Quackery infiltrates The BMJ

As quackery in the form of "integrative medicine" has increasingly been "integrated" into medicine, medical journals are starting to notice and succumb to the temptation to decrease their skepticism. The BMJ, unfortunately, is the latest to do so. It won't be the last.

/ May 22, 2017

In which we are accused of “polarization-based medicine”

A little over a month ago, I wrote about how proponents of “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), now more frequently called “integrative medicine,” go to great lengths to claim nonpharmacological treatments for, well, just about anything as somehow being CAM or “integrative.” The example I used was a systematic review article published by several of the bigwigs at that government font of...

/ October 10, 2016

Academic Consortium plan: force medical residents to practice integrative medicine

“Integrative medicine” (IM) is an ideological movement within medicine driven in large part by those whose livelihoods depend on its continued existence. This includes both those with positions in academic medicine and individual practitioners who use the IM brand to attract patients. Despite IM and its antecedents (alternative, complementary, alternative and complementary, complementary and integrative) having been around for about a quarter...

/ April 14, 2016