Tag: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
The TACT is at least as Bad as We Predicted
I had wanted to follow Dr. Sampson’s discussion of “Healing Touch” with one of my own, because I had an interesting experience with one of its proponents years ago, and I’ll do that soon. I had also wanted to begin a series of posts about acupuncture, which I’ll also do eventually. Just yesterday, however, Liz Woeckner, co-author of our recently published critique of...
“Chelation Therapy”: Another Unethical “CAM” Trial Sponsored by Taxpayers
Please forgive the promotion of our own work and the facile evasion of a full-length blog, but two of your faithful bloggers are co-authors of an article published this week: Why the NIH Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) Should Be Abandoned Kimball C. Atwood IV, MD; Elizabeth Woeckner, AB, MA; Robert S. Baratz, MD, DDS, PhD; Wallace I. Sampson, MD Medscape J...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part VI)
Part V of this Blog argued that the NCCAM-sponsored trial of the “Gonzalez regimen” for cancer of the pancreas is unethical by numerous criteria.† To provide an illustration, it quoted a case history of one of the trial’s subjects, who had died in 2002.¹ It had been written by the subject’s friend, mathematician Susan Gurney. A similar story was told on ABC 20/20 in 2000, albeit...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part V)
Part IV of this blog ended by observing that the NIH-funded trial of the “Gonzalez regimen” for cancer of the pancreas,† to have begun in March, 1999, was in trouble almost as soon as it started. As originally designed, it was to have been a randomized, controlled trial comparing gemcitabine, the standard chemotherapy, to the “Gonzalez regimen” of pancreatic enzymes, “supplements,” twice-daily coffee enemas, and other purported...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part IV)
A Review; then Back to the Gonzalez Regimen† Part I of this blog introduced the topic of the “Gonzalez regimen” for treating cancer: “Intensive Pancreatic Proteolytic Enzyme Therapy With Ancillary Nutritional Support” and “detoxification” with twice daily coffee enemas, daily “skin brushing,” “a complete liver flush and a clean sweep and purge on a rotating basis each month,” and more. The topic...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part III)
A Reminder (Mainly to Myself): this Blog will Eventually get back to Discussing the NIH Trial of the “Gonzalez Regimen” for Treating Cancer of the Pancreas† Which, if you’ll recall, is an arduous dietary and “detox” regimen that includes 150 pills per day, many of which contain pancreatic enzymes, two “coffee enemas” per day, “a complete liver flush and a clean sweep and purge on...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part II)
Laetrile and the Politics of NIH-Sponsored trials of “Alternative Cancer Treatments” Part I of this blog ended by asking how, in light of the implausible and arduous nature of the “Gonzalez regimen” for cancer of the pancreas, and the unconvincing “best case series,” the NIH could ever have decided to fund a trial of it.† This entry will begin to answer that question. In so...
The Ethics of “CAM” Trials: Gonzo (Part I)
Blogger’s note: This blog, which is rough going in places, will be presented in either 2 or 3 parts (I won’t know which until next week). I’ll post a part each week until it is complete, but due to overwhelming popular demand I promise to maintain the every-other-week posting of the far more amusing Weekly Waluation of the Weasel Words of Woo/2. Introduction On Feb. 25,...
Misleading Language: the Common Currency of “CAM” Characterizations Part II
Background I promised readers the “Advanced Course” for this week, which undoubtedly has you shaking in your boots. Fear not: you’ve already had a taste of advanced, subtle, misleading “CAM” language, and most of you probably “got” it. That was R. Barker Bausell’s analysis of how homeopathy is “hypothesized to work.” In the interest of civility, let me reiterate that I don’t...
Misleading Language: the Common Currency of “CAM” Characterizations. Part I
The Best Policy From time to time I have been reiterating that correct use of the language has much to do with logic; I should add that it entails also honesty. I use the word “honesty” in its broadest sense… Concision is honesty, honesty concision—that’s one thing you need to know. —John Simon. Paradigms Lost: Reflections on Literacy and its Decline. New York, NY:...