Doctors Open To "Mystical Mumbo Jumbo"

Alternative Medicine Going Mainstream Despite Lack Of Evidence

(AP)  At one of the nation's top trauma hospitals, a nurse circles a patient's bed, humming and waving her arms as if shooing evil spirits. Another woman rubs a quartz bowl with a wand, making tunes that mix with the beeping monitors and hissing respirator keeping the man alive.

They are doing Reiki therapy, which claims to heal through invisible energy fields. The anesthesia chief, Dr. Richard Dutton, calls it "mystical mumbo jumbo." Still, he's a fan.

"It's self-hypnosis" that can help patients relax, he said. "If you tell yourself you have less pain, you actually do have less pain."

Alternative medicine has become mainstream. It is finding wider acceptance by doctors, insurers and hospitals like the shock trauma center at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

People turn to unconventional therapies and herbal remedies for everything from hot flashes and trouble sleeping to cancer and heart disease. They crave more "care" in their health care. They distrust drug companies and the government. They want natural, safer remedies.

But often, that is not what they get. Government actions and powerful interest groups have left consumers vulnerable to flawed products and misleading marketing.

Dietary supplements do not have to be proved safe or effective before they can be sold. Some contain natural things you might not want, such as lead and arsenic. Some interfere with other things you may be taking, such as birth control pills.

"Herbals are medicines," with good and bad effects, said Bruce Silverglade of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Contrary to their little-guy image, many of these products are made by big businesses. Ingredients and their countries of origin are a mystery to consumers. They are marketed in ways that manipulate emotions, just like ads for hot cars and cool clothes.

Even therapies that may help certain conditions, such as acupuncture, are being touted for uses beyond their evidence.

An Associated Press review of dozens of studies and interviews with more than 100 sources found an underground medical system operating in plain sight, with a different standard than the rest of medical care, and millions of people using it on blind faith.

How did things get this way?

Fifteen years ago, Congress decided to allow dietary and herbal supplements to be sold without federal Food and Drug Administration approval. The number of products soared, from about 4,000 then to well over 40,000 now.

Ten years ago, Congress created a new federal agency to study supplements and unconventional therapies. But more than $2.5 billion of tax-financed research has not found any cures or major treatment advances, aside from certain uses for acupuncture and ginger for chemotherapy-related nausea. If anything, evidence has mounted that many of these pills and therapies lack value.

Yet they are finding ever-wider use:

Big hospitals and clinics increasingly offer alternative therapies. Many just offer stress reducers like meditation, yoga and massage. But some offer treatments with little or no scientific basis, to patients who are emotionally vulnerable and gravely ill.

Some medical schools are teaching future doctors about alternative medicine, sometimes with federal grants. The goal is to educate them about what patients are using so they can give evidence-based, nonjudgmental care. But some schools have ties to alternative medicine practitioners and advocates.

Health insurers are cutting deals to let alternative medicine providers market supplements and services directly to members. Some insurers steer patients to Internet sellers of supplements, even though patients must pay for these out of pocket.

A few herbal supplements can directly threaten health. A surprising number do not supply what their labels claim, contain potentially harmful substances like lead, or are laced with hidden versions of prescription drugs.

"In testing, one out of four supplements has a problem," said Dr. Tod Cooperman, president of ConsumerLab.com, an independent company that rates such products.

Even when the ingredients aren't risky, spending money for a product with no proven benefit is no small harm.

But sometimes the cost is far greater. Cancer patients can lose their only chance of beating the disease. People with clogged arteries can suffer a heart attack. Children can be harmed by unproven therapies forced on them by parents who distrust conventional medicine.

Mainstream medicine and prescription drugs have problems, too. Popular drugs such as the painkillers Vioxx and Bextra were pulled from the market after serious side effects emerged once they were widely used by consumers. But at least there are regulatory systems, guideline-setting groups and watchdog agencies helping to keep traditional medicine in line.

The safety net for alternative medicine is far flimsier.

More than a third of Americans use unconventional therapies, including acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, and native or traditional healing methods. These practitioners are largely self-policing, with their own schools and accreditation groups.

Tens of millions of Americans take dietary supplements - vitamins, minerals and herbs, ranging from ginseng and selenium to fish oil and zinc, said Steven Mister, president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, an industry trade group.

"We bristle when people talk about us as if we're just fringe," he said. Supplements are "an insurance policy" if someone doesn't always eat right, he said.

Some are widely recommended by doctors - prenatal vitamins for pregnant women and calcium for older women at risk of osteoporosis, for example. These uses are generally thought to be safe, although testing has found quality problems with specific products.

Some studies suggest that vitamin deficiencies can raise the risk of disease. But it is not clear that taking supplements will fix that, and research has found hints of harm, said Dr. Jeffrey White, complementary and alternative medicine chief at the National Cancer Institute. He sees the field as "an area of opportunity" that deserves serious study.

So does Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the federal agency Congress created a decade ago.

"Most patients are not treated very satisfactorily," Briggs said. "If we had highly effective, satisfactory conventional treatment we probably wouldn't have as much need for these other strategies and as much public interest in them."

That is why Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, a cancer specialist at the Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York, said he includes nutrition testing and counseling, meditation and relaxation techniques in his treatment.

"You do have people who will say 'chemotherapy is just poison,"' said Gaynor, who tells them he doesn't agree. He'll say: "Cancer takes decades to develop, so you're not going to be able to think that all of a sudden you're going to change your diet or do meditation (and cure it). You need to treat it medically. You can still do things to make your diet better. You can still do meditation to reduce your stress."

Many people buy supplements to treat life's little miseries - trouble falling asleep, menopausal hot flashes, memory lapses, the need to lose weight, sexual problems.

The Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1994 exempted such products from needing FDA approval or proof of safety or effectiveness before they go on sale.

The industry has stepped up self-policing - the Council for Responsible Nutrition hired a lawyer to work with the Council of Better Business Bureaus and file complaints against outlandish marketing claims.

The FDA just issued its first guidelines for good manufacturing practices, aimed at improving supplement safety. Consumer groups say the rules don't go far enough, but give the FDA more leverage.

The Federal Trade Commission is filing more complaints about deceptive marketing. One of the largest settlements occurred last August - $30 million from the makers of Airborne, a product marketed with a folksy "invented by a teacher" slogan that claimed to ward off germs spread through the air.

People need to be skeptical of the term "natural," said Kathy Allen, a dietitian at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. Supplements lack proof of safety or benefit. Asked to take a drug under those terms, "most of us would say 'no,"' she said. "When it says 'natural,' the perception is there is no harm. And that is just not true."

Strange how western medicine almost never test for heavy metals but when they have competition from natural products here comes the claim for lead and mercury. People are waking up to the poisons Big Pharma pass out and claims they are safe and then get recall years later for deadly side effects. There is an alternative. Posted by Baileyccc

[jasperlily]

cydygitt1

Well, everybody had better get ready to scream and shout because in England the pharmas managed to do just that - control that which works as well or better than their poisonous substances and make them unavailable to the public. All in the name of greed. I was appalled when I tried to buy some natural herbs to help my mother over there and they are totally unavailable except through about five (at that time) special herbal institutions. How easily we surrender ourselves to the conglomerates who want to force us to use only their products and risk breaking the law (bought and paid for with their lobbyists) if we choose for ourselves that which we want to use for medical care.

[cydygitt1]

"People turn to unconventional therapies and herbal remedies for everything from hot flashes and trouble sleeping to cancer and heart disease. They crave more "care" in their health care. They distrust drug companies and the government. They want natural, safer remedies."

"But often, that is not what they get."

-------------------------------------

Not only are the for-profit insurance companies continuing to fight competition to lower prices that have resulted in a 130% increase in health care in just the last 10 years, but they have also fought to control all alternative medicine that they cannot make any profits on. Many people have found other remedies than the scalpel and expensive procedures, and usually pay for these alternative medical doctors like chiropractic, naturopathic, acupuncture or applied kinesiology out of their own pockets.

A patient should have the CHOICE of more OPTIONS than just the GREEDY for-profit health care system currently reaping huge profits and raping Americans, and native and Chinese herbs, along with many alternative medical doctors should be part of our OPTIONS.

It is well past time for Americans to have a 'single-payer' system with many OPTIONS and ALTERNATIVES to the for-profit insurance middleman that never provides a darn thing -- just adds hundreds of billions to the out-of-control health care debacle.

[CLoverNYC1]

Doctors have the right and are trained to diagnose and treat patients. Doctors do not have the right to challenge or conflict a person's faith.

[jasperlily]

rf35

"An agency with the power to sort the real stuff from the fake or even harmful products would be a tremendous help. Unfortunately, it would doubtless get caught up in the endless corruption that plagues the rest of the govenment regulatory agencies and fail at its given task. "

Exactly right on the mark !!! Surely we have brains enough to utilize our naturally grown medicines (we call them weeds and spray them dead :) rather than trusting in the integrity and knowledge of any government-appointed agency to do it for us. LOL Just look at the FDA if people need an example of how we are all being duped for the benefit of the companies they are supposed to monitor and investigate.,

[aChangeOfIdeas]

It is to medicine as the cbs blog is to insightful commentary. Time for your interpretive dance, people!
Posted by YrSoWrong

=) Thanks for the smile. So true! =)

[buttonjockey]

From the article:

: Fifteen years ago, Congress decided to allow dietary and herbal supplements to be sold without federal Food and
: Drug Administration approval. The number of products soared, from about 4,000 then to well over 40,000 now.

That's how it should be, otherwise the natural supplement industry would be wiped out. It's all about money! Drug companies CAN front the 1/4 BILLION dollars for a study on their latest drug because they know they'll recoup that and more when they have a patent on it and sales projections support it.

But NOBODY will front the $.25B for a study on an herb because you cannot patent it and therefore cannot control sales in a fashion to make your money back.

Similarly, there are drugs approved for one condition that are also effective for another condition (like alzheimers) but the FDA will NOT re-approve these drugs for use with alzheimers unless a new study is done. Since the patent on these drugs has already expired, no drug company will pay for the study because none can control the market well enough to recoup the $.25B for the study.

The agency that is now studying alternative therapies at taxpayer expense has spent $2.5B - the equivalent of only about 10 FDA studies - so for them to find a couple successes is pretty good.

Finally, and my biggest pet peeve, is the bias and politics within the FDA. Read the story of Aspartame and how it was approved and who benefited.

[wogerwabbit]

Nothing is a cure-all but to deny that natural medicine can be of any help is a shameful and disgusting fraud intended only to benefit the pharmaceutical companies' profits.

Posted by jasperlily at 9:42 PM : Jun 8, 2009

How true! More than half the drugs out there are synthetic versions of things found in nature. And I don't see why they lump chiropractic in there... there's nothing voodoo about that, it works... take it from someone with 3 herniated discs.

[viewing2245]

Dr "Mumbo Jumbo" above should look in the mirror - the drug companies that support him are raking in billions of dollars on drugs that have a multitude of terrible side effects - many even causing death! There are a scant few instances where someone used a herbal or natural remedy with any deleterious effects - and it was usually because of gross over use which would be true of any substance.

Americans with brains are taking their health care into their own hands and have quit listening to "authoritative doctors" who are paid by big Pharma to push drugs that have no curative effects - they only suppress symtoms which cause more problems later on - hence they prescribe more drugs to counteract the side effects from the first range of drugs - it's a vicious cycle and only leads to greater dis-ease! Hello, anyone awake out there?

[rf35]

The "natural remedy" world needs some sort of regulatory agency. There are plenty of great natural treatments and cures for many ailments out there, but there are even more frauds pushed by snake-oil salesmen who realize they can claim anything and get away with it so long as their product is "natural." An agency with the power to sort the real stuff from the fake or even harmful products would be a tremendous help. Unfortunately, it would doubtless get caught up in the endless corruption that plagues the rest of the govenment regulatory agencies and fail at its given task.

[jasperlily]

The pharmaceutical companies' drugs aren't safe or a sure thing, either. Thanks to their lobbytists and their over-cozy relationship with people in the FDA, they have gotten laws passed stating that only pharma drugs may be said to cure anything. What a massive lie and out of sheer greed. Wonder how we survived all these centuries without their poison - which, incidentally, for some reason they are being permitted to bombard us with tv ads about. Seems incongruous to me - on the one hand there's a war against kids using prescription drugs to get high while, at the same time, the pharmas are permitted to bombard the public with their ads for prescription drugs - all of which are dangerous and have had side effects. A vet gave up on my dog's inoperable tumor. I cured it in 3 weeks with herbs. The vet was flabbergasted. A different vet had no drugs to offer for another dog in end stages of distemper. Again, I cured it with herbs. That vet was speechless - asked me for the recipe (and his wife was a nutritionist :)

Nothing is a cure-all but to deny that natural medicine can be of any help is a shameful and disgusting fraud intended only to benefit the pharmaceutical companies' profits.

[whitemale08]

More and more signs that we are entering a New Dark Age.

Religious clerics are in on it because in the Medieval period, priests had power as people would come to them for everything including physical healing.

The reason why many crazy rituals are performed to cure sick people in Africa and Latin America is because the IMF/World Parasites force MASSIVE AUSTERITY on their populations so they can't afford modern medicine.

This is the true face of globalism, and the New World Order.

Already the mainstream media is preparing you for drastic, genocidal cuts in social programs like health-care to pay for these stupid bailouts that Obama is doing for Goldman Sucks and JP Morgan.

Get ready to die folks for the sake of BIG FAILED BANKS that make up the New World Order of Worthless Derivatives and Credit-Default Swaps Under Neo-Fuedalism and Serfdom controlled by the British Empire.

[incog-nito]

With the cost of health care approaching ridiculous levels, it's no wonder more Americans are turning to alternative medicine. Get ready for more faith-healing, voodoo, holy water, and exorcisms.

[YrSoWrong]

Quick confirmation of my worst fears.

[Oregon_State_OSU]

Good Now they can try to Cure Rush and George W. Bush so they are not so Stupid and REETARDED and Haters.

[YrSoWrong]

It is to medicine as the cbs blog is to insightful commentary. Time for your interpretive dance, people!