In June of 2001 Dr. Jonas, a consultant to the OAM (Office Of "Alternative" Medicine was on the Program Committee of a conference in San Diego touting the reality of UFO's, paranormalism, Qigong, Orgone Energy and other pseudoscientific claims.
His preoccupation with aberrant methods appears to be thoroughly ideological if not religious.
At one of the hearings of the WHCCAMP, of which he is an appointed member, he stated: " a number of groups are now getting into this field from the orthodox community, because there has been some money available. How can we go about sorting through which ones are truly going to capture the spirit of whole person health or how many are looking really at the bottom line, which is getting redder and redder by the year?" [35]
Dr. Jonas left the OAM at the end of 1998 some two months after its conversion to the NCCAM. By that time many eminent and accomplished scientists had called for its defunding, including former presidential science advisor D. Allan Bromley [36-38]. Especially shameful was the allocation about that time of $1.4 million to the work of Nicholas Gonzalez and his bizarre coffee enema and psychic hair analysis cancer treatments. Even Barrie Cassileth, PhD, Chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, called Gonzalez' claims and methods "voodoo magic silly Not scientific. Worse than not scientific. This is pure ridiculousness." [39]
When Stephen Strauss MD became director of the NCCAM in October of 1999, many supposed that matters could hardly get any worse. Indeed, Dr. Straus' reputation was such that some dared to hope for improvement. But the new director quickly began defending the funding devoted to the work of Dr. Gonzalez [40].
It is true that under Dr. Strauss the NCCAM has also undertaken large-scale multi-center research trials on Saint John's Wort, Ginkgo and glucosamine, the results of which will likely be trustworthy. Sadly, these are unlikely to be clinically useful for reasons that I pointed out in my testimony at the September 10 hearing. Indeed, after almost ten years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, nothing has yet come out of the OAM/NCCAM that has been shown to be clinically important. Even a definitive study to determine the effectiveness of the bee pollen that Senator Tom Harkin believes cured his hayfever has not been undertaken.
But Dr. Strauss' leadership at the NCCAM is disturbing for other reasons. There is clear evidence either that he lacks scientific judgment or that ideological advocates remain firmly in control at the NCCAM. It may be a contributing factor that, as a virologist, he has no expertise in evaluating aberrant and irrational medical methods. Among dozens of smaller NCCAM research grants, for example, have been many that are wasteful, inappropriate and utterly bizarre. In 2000, for example, three grants were awarded for obvious paranormalism research into "psychic powers," euphemistically called "distant healing" or "transfer of neural energy" from one person to another:
1-R01-AT-485-1 Distant Healing Efforts for AIDS by Nurses and 'Healers' Targ, Elisabeth F. [41], California Pacific Medical Center -Pacific Campus. This is a three year grant awarded on July 1, 2000 totaling nearly $663,000 [42].
1-R01-AT-644-1 Efficacy of Distant Healing in Glioblastoma Treatment Targ, Elisabeth F., California Pacific Medical Center-Pacific Campus. This is a four-year grant totaling nearly $823,000 [43].
1-R21-AT-287-1 Transfer of Neural Energy Between Human Subjects Standish, Leanna J. Bastyr University. (Dollar figures unknown)
Elisabeth Targ MD, who with the first two of these grant awards scooped up nearly $1.5 million of taxpayer dollars, is head of the Complementary Medicine Research Institute of California Pacifica Medical Center in San Francisco. She is a third generation psychic believer continuing a long tradition of pursuing absurd and discredited paranormal claims. This is a tradition distinguished chiefly by fraud and self-deception [44,45]. Her father, Russell Targ, earned notoriety in the 1970's for bilking the U.S. Department of Defense on promises that "remote viewers" could be trained to provide on-site details of Russian military facilities by visiting them "psychically." According to her father, Elisabeth was trained on a psychic power teaching machine as a young girl and was able to predict the winners of horse races and presidential elections [46]. Distinguished science writer Martin Gardner recently provided additional details about the Targs, their eccentric beliefs and NCCAM funding of them [47].
Janet Quinn, RN PhD, a Therapeutic Touch (TT) practitioner and a former student of TT's founder Dolores Krieger, is a paid consultant to Dr. Targ on the AIDS work and is recruiting additional TT practitioners to act as a "control group" against the main group of psi-powered "healers." $500 honorariums are being paid to perform this "work" with a total of $20,834 allocated for it through the February 28th, 2001 budget period. TT is a mystical "healing" method, the premise of which was falsified by an elementary school science project [48]. The most recent exploits of its founder, Dolores Krieger, are of "doing healing at distance" of those killed in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, "calling upon the help of the angels of compassion to help the person through the terror of dying so suddenly and so horribly. working together with whatever beneficent forces I think of or who present themselves at this time." [49]
Understandably worried about the reaction of more sensible people to her NCCAM-funded studies, Dr. Targ has announced her determination to either get positive results or leave the door open to wasting more of the taxpayers' dollars on her work with psychic powers. At a parapsychology conference entitled "Subtle Energies and Uncharted Realms of the Mind," at the New Age oriented Esalen Institute in July 2000, it was reported that:
Targ discussed the difficulties of doing a clinical research study on distant healing. Since the mainstream medical community is highly skeptical of Targ's research, she must be meticulous at every step in the process. In addition, she must also guard against showing a negative result, because the mainstream will take those results and attempt to discredit what Targ is trying to show. [50]
Current NCCAM advisor Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, and former NCCAM advisor Beverly Rubik, as well as Dr. Targ's father Russell were among the other featured speakers at the event [51].
Dr Strauss is fully aware of and supportive of these grants to Dr. Targ. In his annual director's report given at a February 5, 2001 NCCAM Advisory Committee meeting, Dr. Straus said:
Dr. Targ at the California Pacific Medical Center is studying distance healing for glioblastoma, trying to move this research forward from small trials. The study has 150 patients in a double blind RCT in which healers pray for patient recovery. Endpoints include symptoms and functional status. [52]
The third grant was awarded to one of the NCCAM's own advisory board members, Leanna J. Standish: 1-R21-AT-287-1, Transfer of Neural Energy Between Human Subjects, Bastyr University. Bastyr University is an official NCCAM research center. Its website indicates that Dr. Standish, who is the school's research co-director, is joined in her psychic investigations by fellow NCCAM advisor Marilyn Schlitz PhD. [53].
Dr. Schlitz is also on the board of IONS and directs its research programs [54]. With IONS Fellow Dr. Targ, Dr. Schlitz has been conducting her own psi research at California Pacific Medical Center [55]. In addition, Dr. Schlitz is herself an astral voyager "remote viewer" who was praised by Russell Targ for having "achieved the greatest statistical significance of any remote-viewing experiment so far conducted" in exploring tourist sites in Rome from her home in Detroit MI [56].
Standish, a "naturopathic doctor," is, in turn, listed as a co-researcher with Dr. Targ on grant #1-R01-AT-485-1. Another NCCAM advisor, Michael F. Cantwell MD, works with Dr. Targ as lead physician in the Health and Healing Clinic at California Pacific Medical Center. Dr. Cantwell was to be the Principal Investigator for a proposed study of Russian psychics healing children with Cerebral Palsy sponsored by the Monterey Institute for the Study of Alternative Healing Arts which the United Cerebral Palsy Research and Educational Foundation declined to fund [57].
These activities, and doubtless others obscured with more pedestrian titles, fly in the face of an exhaustive study of parapsychology by the National Research Council (NRC) conducted in the late 1980's and early 1990's. The NRC concluded that there is "no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena." [58] Although clearly supported by Dr. Strauss, it is only fair to say that the NCCAM's interest in parapsychological research had begun earlier. These forays into mysticism disguised as science were suggested in a report issued by the OAM's Mind-Body Panel when it was cochaired by paranormalist Larry Dossey MD, Jungian "transpersonal psychologist" Jeanne Achterberg and James S. Gordon MD who is now Chair of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. This report falsely asserted that:
There exist many published reports of experiments in which persons were able to influence a variety of cellular and other biological systems through mental means. The target systems for these investigations have included bacteria, yeast, fungi, mobile algae, plants, protozoa, larvae, insects, chicks, mice, rats, gerbils, cats, and dogs, as well as cellular preparations (blood cells, neurons, cancer cells) and enzyme activities. In human "target persons," eye movements, muscular movements, electrodermal activity, plethysmographic activity, respiration, and brain rhythms have been affected through direct mental influence. [59]
All of this alleged evidence was considered and rejected by the NRC's review. Yet it is continually pointed to by dishonest promoters of paranormalism.
But it may very well be that Dr. Strauss, in his heart of hearts, would agree that these and many other NCCAM-funded activities are absurd and unscientific. It may very well be that, as one journalist wrote last year:
[P]rinciples aside, Straus also has to follow the mandate of Congress - and some of its, well, less-than-scientific members. NCCAM is stuck funding a 5-year, $1.4 million trial of an unusual protocol designed to treat terminal pancreatic cancer by physician Nicolas Gonzalez. The so-called Gonzalez Protocol -- a hodgepodge of pancreatic enzymes, coffee enemas, and up to 150 dietary supplements a day -- caught the attention of Representative Dan Burton (R-IN), who in 1998 encouraged the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to study it. Even though Straus considers the evidence just an "aggregate of interesting anecdotes," he defends the trial -- albeit lukewarmly. "I'm more comfortable and find it easier to approach and fund things that already make a lot more sense to me," he admits. "But the mandate here is ... to be willing to take more risks for things that are novel." [60]
Yet the sad fact remains that these "things that are novel," especially when they are given the imprimatur of the NIH, ultimately put the public at risk for the kinds of harm that I outlined in my testimony on September 10. Perhaps the most egregious example is that of Dr. Gonzalez, who had already been found guilty of medical malpractice and ordered to pay more than $2 million in 1997. Another case was then underway involving a death in which Dr. Gonzalez was ultimately found guilty again -- in April of 2000 -- and ordered to pay $282,000 to the husband of a woman who died under his care [61]. Yet at the urging of Congressman Burton, the NCCAM ignored these considerations and made the preposterous decision that there was good reason to suppose that Gonzalez's methods had merit. Indeed, it is exceedingly puzzling that Congressman Burton trusts American citizens to make their own medical choices when he cannot trust the professional judgments of NIH and NCI research scientists.
White House Commission on Alternative and
Complementary Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP)
The situation with respect to the WHCCAMP is even worse. Established by President Clinton on March 7th of 2000 by Executive Order 13147 and subsequently amended, the group is charged with providing a report "on legislative and administrative recommendations for assuring that public policy maximizes the benefits to Americans of complementary and alternative medicine." The commission's report is due in March of 2002, but there is little doubt that it will recommend expanded federal spending and other policy initiatives to foster irrational and aberrant methods.
The WHCCAMP Chair is James S. Gordon, MD, a Georgetown University psychiatrist who has said that he found "a whole other system of medicine operating under completely different laws" in the1960's when he began studying traditional Chinese medicine. Then, while receiving his training in psychiatry, Dr. Gordon said, he decided that schizophrenia and other disorders "did not seem like diseases to me [but] instead like different ways of being." It was at this time that he became a student of the radical British psychiatrist R. D. Laing whose "Insanity is Sanity" philosophy achieved great popularity in the 1960s drug counterculture [62]. Dr. Gordon appears to have become enamored of these ideas at the very time that Kingsley Hall, Laing's London "therapeutic community" in which the mentally ill and their therapists lived together and -- among other things -- indulged in LSD, was forced to close under a cloud of scandal and public complaint [63]. His thinking distorted by long-term LSD use [64], Laing himself went on to become involved in "Primal Scream" and "rebirthing psychodrama" [65] of the kind that killed a young girl in Colorado in May of 2000 and sent two therapists to jail [66].
Dr. Gordon was a follower of the late Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Indian mystic who amassed wealth and influence enough to take over the small town of Antelope, Oregon in the 1980's before being deported by the authorities for fraud. Dr. Gordon wrote a sympathetic book about the cult, The Golden Guru, in which he offered excuses for the Bhagwan's erratic behavior and the violence connected with the cult. Dr. Gordon also describes his own "rebirthing" experience at the hands of one of the Bhagwan's therapists [67]. In 1984, some followers of the Bhagwan cult were involved in deliberate poisonings of hundreds of people in Oregon [68].
In recent years, Dr. Gordon has been a collaborator of parapsychologists and Jungian mystics within the Transpersonal Psychology movement [69]. He has also become a leading advocate of alien abduction therapy and research, serving on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER), an organization established explicitly by Harvard psychiatrist John Mack, MD, to research alien abductions [70].
Inexplicably, Dr. Gordon also involved himself in the Oklahoma bombing trial of Terry Nichols. As a psychiatrist for the defense, he submitted a letter to the court stating that Nichols was not violent and should not receive a long prison term. Dr. Gordon's opinion was apparently based entirely on letters received from Nichols [71].
Dr. Gordon is a fellow of the John E. Fetzer Institute, which funded the dishonest 1993 report published in The New England Journal of Medicine by David Eisenberg and others that claimed that a third of Americans were using "alternative" methods by including such categories as relaxation, imagery, massage, commercial weight loss and self-help groups. One of Gordon's many books, Manifesto For A New Medicine, is in the millenarian genre of others that predict the transformation of medical care along New Age lines.
In 1994, Dr. Gordon was appointed the very first chairman of the Office of Alternative Medicine's Program Advisory Council and was a co-director of OAM's Mind-Body Panel. Through his Center for Mind-Body Medicine, which has also been funded by the Fetzer Institute, Dr. Gordon has organized a series of Comprehensive Cancer Care Conferences that have gathered together dozens of questionable practitioners as an effective lobbying force for aberrant cancer care [72].
Dr. Gordon has previous experience as a Presidential advisor, having directed a nationwide study of alternative mental health services for President Carter's Commission on Mental Health in the 1970s. In his brief 1978 report, in addition to noncontroversial mental health programs such as rape support and runaway programs, Gordon recommends the spiritual midwifery practices of "The Farm," a psychedelic commune, reiterates his support for R. D. Laing's and Carl Jung's theory of psychosis as creativity (R. D. Laing is directly quoted referring to schizophrenia as "a voyage into self of a potentially revolutionary nature") and offers praise for the then budding holistic medicine industry [73].
Other members of the White House Commission include Dr. Jonas, whose exploits have already been considered and:
George M. Bernier, Jr. MD is the only prominent academic on the Commission. He is the former Dean of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, left that position in 1995 to accept the positions of Dean and Vice President for academic affairs at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. He currently is the Vice President of Education at UTMB.
Since his arrival, UTMB's program in Alternative and Integrative Healthcare has blossomed, offering mystical and paranormal healing techniques including Therapeutic Touch and recommending to the public the mystical writings of Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, Larry Dossey and Carolyn Myss [74]. The program is directed by Victor S. Sierpina, MD, a nationally prominent CAM activist [75]. and includes a faculty member, Mary Anne Hanley, RN, who is a former student of Theosophist mystic Dolores Krieger, the founder of TT [76].
Dr. Bernier was instrumental in establishing a "Spirituality in Clinical Care" course of study for medical and nursing students funded by the National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR), an evangelical Christian group associated with the John Templeton Foundation [77]. The course bibliography features not only the writings of NIHR head David B. Larson but also Healing Words by Larry Dossey MD [78], in which it is claimed that paranormal effects have been demonstrated on bacteria, sweetpeas and mice as well as humans.
Effie Poy Yew Chow, PhD, is an acupuncturist, "Qigong Grandmaster" and founder of the East-West Academy of Healing Arts in San Francisco [79]. Her PhD is in Education. She has connections with the NCCAM going back to the OAM when she was appointed to its first Ad Hoc Advisory Committee [80].
"Qi" is the traditional Chinese counterpart to psychic "life energy," the "flow" of which is said to be modified by acupuncture and which advocates claim can be "absorbed" and "emitted." Chow claims to cure illness and boost the psychic powers of individuals by transmitting "qi" to them by telephone [81]. She employs typical stage magic tricks to "prove" the existence of "qi" energy.
At the Commission's September 8, 2000 meeting in San Francisco, she said that "what we're here for" is "recommending policies to making a big change in the system." [82] Transcripts of the Commission's work show that she has a long relationship with fellow Commissioner David Bresler and with its chair Dr. Gordon [83].
"Dr." David Bresler is also an acupuncturist. Like Chow, he is not a physician but holds a PhD. He is credited by the White House with being "one of the first contemporary American scientists to study and research acupuncture, guided imagery, and other mind/body approaches." But the only two published clinical trials of which he is a co-author involve acupuncture, one of which showed no benefit in asthma. Another article purported to show scientifically that the whole human body is mapped out on the ear [84].
Guided imagery is based on almost as fanciful a notion, namely, that imagining physical changes in the body can effect those changes. Thus, cancer patients are taught to imagine their tumors being destroyed. Yet there is no published evidence -- zero -- in support of guided imagery affording more than psychological benefits for any condition, or that such effects are superior to those offered by other interventions. Nevertheless, Bresler founded the Academy of Guided Imagery (AGI) [85]. in 1989 which now sells 150-hour "certification" training programs at $3495 each. Among other things, such training involves "dialoguing with symptoms." Another practice is to call up an "inner advisor," a kind of spirit guide that may take the form of an animal.
AGI promotes audio tapes to the general public. One for "Arthritis and Lupus," for example, is "[d]esigned to help reduce rheumatoid joint inflammation, soreness, excess fluid; replace eroded bone and joint tissue; help calm overactive, misguided immune cells." Another, for diabetic patients, is "[d]esigned to encourage insulin sensitivity at the cellular level; help the body metabolize food in a steady, balanced way; help repair damage to organs and tissue." Still another, for victims of atherosclerosis, is alleged "to help the body restore weary heart tissue; improve cholesterol and blood pressure; dissolve arterial plaque; [and] maintain healthy arteries." There is no evidence that AGI's tapes exert such miraculous effects.
Bresler is a credulous believer in other nonsense as well. To an Iranian faith-healer, one Ostad Hadi Parvarandeh who claimed to be in touch with the "collective consciousness" of the universe, Bresler wrote: "Ostad, I have been quite amazed by the progress shown by several of my patients who have seen you, and feel that it is time to launch some serious scientific studies to carefully document whatever is happening [86].
Xiao Ming Tian is a Beijing-trained physician-acupuncturist who runs the Academy of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine at his Wildwood Acupuncture Center in Bethesda. There he offers acupuncture, acupressure, Chinese herbal remedies, and Qi-Gong "treatments," qi-gong being the vitalistic "energy" medicine of the prescientific Orient [87].
Tian has been a consultant to the NIH and was involved in producing the NIH Consensus Statement on Acupuncture that deliberately excluded critics of the method. The biographical information on Tian released by the White House indicates that he received government funding for "many research projects on the use of Chinese herbal medicine and dietary supplements," none of which appears to have resulted in published work available by search on PUBMED. According to the White House press release, Tian is also "President of the American Association of Chinese Medicine," as well as "Honorary Director of the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Vice President of The International Academy of Medical Qigong, both in Beijing, China."
Veronica Gutierrez is a chiropractor from Lake Stevens, Washington. She is extremely active in the World Chiropractic Alliance (WCA), sitting on its Board of Directors, serving as its Director of Programs in Public Policy, and chairing its Health Care Reform Committee and its Council on Women's Health [88].
The WCA is an organization of "straight" chiropractors whose allegiance is to the original doctrine of disease causation taught by chiropractic's founder, D.D. Palmer, that spinal "subluxations" interfere with the "flow" of supernatural "innate intelligence" and can only be corrected by chiropractic "adjustments." The WCA promotes chiropractic as the ideal form of medical care for infants and children as well as for adults. It opposes routine immunizations [89]. while dismissing medical science -- as "alternative medicine" guru Andrew Weil MD does -- as good only for "trauma care and crisis management." In fact, Gutierrez herself fumes that, "If anyone still believes medical science reigns supreme, they now must say 'The Emperor wears no clothes.'" [90]
Ms. Gutierrez is also connected with the Council for Chiropractic Practice (CCP). The CCP advocates home births, chiropractic manipulation of infants for the prevention of SIDS, of children for pediatric ear infections, and lifelong "adjustments" for an alleged epidemic of "subluxations" for everyone. The CCP also claims that EEG's, surface EMG's, and thermography, as well as other unproven methods can demonstrate chiropractic "subluxations." [91]
Ms. Gutierrez's presence on the commission is the result of lobbying by the WCA [92], which boasts of growing political influence and maintains a presence in Washington D.C. for the purpose of exerting political influence [93]. Indeed, immediately upon Gutierrez's appointment to the commission, the WCA began mobilizing its members to testify at its meetings [94].
Donald W. Warren is a dentist from Clinton, Arkansas who treats temporomandibular joint dysfunction and other ailments with "dental cranial osteopathy." In addition, he practices "contact reflex analysis," which is claimed to be a method of "analyzing the body's structural, physical, and nutritional needs." This is done by pressing on various mystical points on the body while pushing and pulling on the patient's arm (or other body part). Alterations in muscle strength -- the "reflexes" -- are claimed to "quickly and accurately uncover the root" of any health problem.
Details concerning this astonishingly irrational form of medical quackery, including the locations of the "Master Allergy Reflexes," the "Metabolic Reflex," the "Yeast Reflex," the "Hemoglobin Reflex," and additional "reflexes" especially relevant for the flu season, can be found at http://www.crahealth.org (click on "CRA and Syndromes"). On this same website can be found Dr. Warren lengthy statement of enthusiastic belief in CRA as well as the healing powers of "God, chiropractic, CRA-based nutrition, dentistry and osteopathy." [95]
Dr. Warren's personal convictions concerning this curious application of stage magic are forthright, if delusional: "In my 16 years of practicing as a dentist, I have never known any method of analysis, technique, treatment or nutritional presentation so helpful, so exact, so satisfying, and have such a high level of quality as Contact Reflex Analysis." [96]
Linnea Larson is a Social Worker who is Associate Director of an "Integrative Medicine" department of West Suburban Health Care in Oak Park, IL. She also practices Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as well as other irrational forms of "mind-body" therapy [97]. Serious problems exist with respect to EMDR and its lack of validation [98].
Larson was among the faculty listed at a program in Santa Fe in October of 2000 entitled "Integrating Culture and Complementary Medicine: Challenges to the Biomedical Paradigm." [99] This conference assailed the scientific biopsychosocial model of medicine from the perspective of postmodern cultural relativism. Another notable speaker was Victor Sierpina MD, the head of the University of Texas Medical Branch's alternative medicine program which has been nurtured by fellow commissioner George M. Bernier MD.
Joseph E. Pizzorno, Jr, is an "ND" Doctor of Naturopathy, a naturopathic midwife and the founding president of Bastyr University, a naturopathic school that was chosen by the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) to be a Center for Alternative Medicine Research. He continues to act as an advisor to the school.
Pizzorno is on the "Management Team" of The Dove Health Alliance [100], the mission of which is "to discover, validate, and disseminate the principles and practices of energy medicine on personal, societal and environmental levels." [101]
Pizzorno promotes a variety of unproven and irrational claims as fact. For example, he asserts that "The hypothesis that gluten is a causative factor in the development of schizophrenia is substantiated by epidemiological, clinical and experimental studies." [102] He believes that food allergies cause multiple sclerosis [103]. He says the dandelion is useful for the "sluggish, congested, toxic liver." [104] He promotes kava for "stress." [105] And, like Deepak Chopra, he is a proponent of the mystico-herbal practice of Ayurveda [106].
Pizzorno also believes in the bizarre "blood type diet" advocated by fellow naturopathic "doctor" Peter D'Adamo, a Bastyr graduate. Pizzorno calls it "The Medical Breakthrough For The Ages," saying that it will change the practice of medicine for centuries to come and lauds D'Adamo as "an outstanding example of the best Bastyr has to offer." [107]
Joseph J. Fins, MD is Director of Medical Ethics at the Cornell campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital and holds academic positions at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He appears to be one of only three Commission members who have not clearly established reputations as ideological advocates for irrational claims and practices. His primary interests to date have been in palliative and hospice care for the dying [108].
In his comments during meetings of the commission, Dr. Fins has betrayed more serious prejudices, saying that he was "really struck by this notion of ancestral medicine." He also seems unaware of the fact that concern for the family and spiritual dimensions of patients is well within the biopsychosocial model of scientific medicine in speaking of the "failings of allopathic medical education." [109]
George DeVries runs at least three different companies. American Specialty Health and Wellness sells supplements over the Internet. American Specialty Health Plans [110] and American Specialty Networks "provide chiropractic and acupuncture managed-care services." Acupuncture Today calls him the "president of one of the largest acupuncture HMOs in the nation." [111] DeVries'efforts seem to be devoted primarily to getting employers and insurance companies, and, it would now appear, taxpayers, to pay for unproven methods.
Sister Charlotte Rose Kerr is an acupuncturist who is said to "integrate" theology into her methods. This might be assumed to be Catholicism but she has taught and practiced at the Tai Sophia Institute in Columbia, Maryland since 1977 at which Qi Gong, homeopathy, food supplementation, shiatzu and "zero balancing" are offered [112]. Links from the Tai Sophia website include IONS, the Esalen Institute, and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, another New Age organization. An announcement praising Sister Kerr's appointment to commission is posted on the Tai Sophia website [113] in which it is stated that "Dr. James S. Gordon, Director of the Center for Mind/Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., [is] a long-time friend of the Tai Sophia Institute."
At the Commission's Draft Interim Report meeting on July 3rd of 2001, Sister Kerr said: " we believe the body/mind has the right and power to heal itself. healing is being in right relationship with self, others, community and the cosmos." [114] . . . .
Dean Ornish, MD earned his reputation with his work on the management of atherosclerosis with extremely low fat vegetarian diets. But like predecessor Nathan Pritikin, Ornish's recommendations are not suitable for most people. The few small studies claimed to prove the worth of his work have also been questioned on scientific grounds. Dr. Richard Pasternak, director of preventive cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, has said that "There's virtually no science" in them [117]. Dr. Robert Eckel, Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and chairman of the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association also expressed serious doubts, as did Dr. Frank Sacks, a nutrition professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Sacks, in trying to replicate Dr. Ornish's results with a grant from the NIH, found that it was difficult to recruit patients and few could stick with the program [118]. Fortunately, Ornish's program has been superseded by more effective forms of managing elevated blood cholesterol and the discovery of other treatable risk factors.
Like Dr. Gordon, Dr. Ornish began as a devotee of an Indian guru, Sri Swami Satchidananda. He became involved with the Swami after dropping out of Rice University in 1972 in a state of suicidal depression. It was apparently during this time that he formed his beliefs about the importance of a vegetarian diet with no added salt, sugar or fat and no caffeine combined with meditation, yoga and exercise.
Dr. Ornish has enthusiastically endorsed many irresponsible unscientific works by others including Larry Dossey's Healing Words [119], and psychic Judith Orloff's Second Sight" [120]. Dr. Gordon's own Center for Mind-Body Medicine features an endorsement by Ornish as well [121].
William Fair, MD is former Chief of Urology Services at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He is a disciple of Dr. Ornish to whom he turned to help with colon cancer in the mid-1990s. Dr. Fair now credits dietary measures for his own cure and claims that similar approaches are effective with prostate cancer. At the first meeting of the Commission he stated that "I honestly think we need to change medicine. I think we need to bring these complementary and alternative medicine techniques into the practice of every doctor." [122]
Dr. Fair is currently chairman of the clinical advisory board of Health, LLC, through which he and his son promote alternative medicine [123]. He has also worked closely with the commission chair, Dr. Gordon, in putting on a series of conferences promoting alternative medicine for cancer [124] and is on the board of Gordon's Center for Mind-Body Medicine. Drs. Fair and Gordon also sit on the editorial board of Larry Dossey's Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine which regularly features articles on paranormal healing as well as bioenergetics and shamanism.
Thomas Chappell is a businessman with a degree from Harvard Divinity School. He runs Tom's of Maine, a dietary supplement company [125] as well as a management consulting firm in Colorado called the Saltwater Institute [126]. His supplement company makes typical unsubstantiated claims to promote its products such as that Ginseng "revitalizes an active life-style" and that Echinacea "supports the immune system." [127]
Conchita M. Paz, MD, of Las Cruces, NM is a family practitioner who appears to be interested in cultural issues in medicine. She is a member of the National Hispanic Medical Association .
Buford Rolin has been the Health Administrator of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians since 1984. He is also a member of the Alabama Public Health Advisory Board and former chairman of the National Indian Health Board (NIHB). Mr. Rolin's primary interest has understandably been with the medically undeserved communities of native Americans. But the NIHB has endorsed Indian Health Service funding for "traditional healing," apparently in the belief that this form of "holistic" care is a more realistic expectation for native Americans [128]. Mr. Rolin has voiced similar opinions [129].
Julia R. Scott, RN, is the President of the National Black Women's Health Project, has been active on behalf of the Children's Defense Fund and has served as an NIH consultant on African-American health issues.
The appointment of the last three members of the commission appears to be a cynical attempt to enlist the support of racial minorities in the cause of legitimizing irrational and aberrant medical claims and practices. This should be seen in the context of the ideological beliefs of other commission members, including its Chair, in the notion that science is little more than a tool of cultural domination and oppression. It is a shameful attempt to dissuade groups that are in the greatest need of accessible and equitable medical treatment to be satisfied, instead, with something less than the standards of science and reason. That this recurrent theme in the "alternative medicine" movement could appeal to a cynical interest in cost-saving at the expense of the lives and health of the nation's elderly is particularly worrisome [130]..Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm's assertion that Americans have "a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that" is not one with which all Americans disagree [131].
Completely absent from the WHCCAMP are any individuals whose concern is primarily for sound science, evidence-based medicine, and the protection of the public from health fraud. It is all the more surprising given the ready availability of many individuals who have established reputations as scholars of the subject of unproven, disproven and irrational methods often subsumed under the heading of "alternative" and "complementary" medicine.
That the commission was created for the purpose of advocacy is also shown by the fact that its Executive Director and Secretary are also ideological proponents of "alternative medicine." The former is Stephen C. Groft, who began as the acting director of OAM at its inception. The commission's Executive Secretary, Michele Chang, is a massage therapist who has worked for Senator Tom Harkin and says that she "help[ed] with the conception of this Commission." At the WHCCAMP's first meeting she expressed her belief that there is a "need to consider hearing from people who are practicing CAM modalities in secret" but who "are afraid that they are going to be closed down once the authorities become involved." [132]
Conclusion
The objections of the Honorable Congressman Burton to the nature and substance of the September 10 hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging are misplaced, misinformed, and unfair. All of those who spoke at the hearing, with the exception of Mr. Braswell and Mr. Tepper, were plainly interested in drawing the distinction between health-related claims that are based in facts and reason and those that clearly are not. This is the very same standard that was applied in the 1984 Pepper Report and from which current government policies have strayed dangerously. Not only are there serious problems with DSHEA but these problems exist in a context of political institutions such as the NCCAM and the WHCCAMP that are at best tolerant of quackery and at worst tend to directly or indirectly promote it. The controversy over these and related issues is not fundamentally one between personalities or philosophies but between reason and unreason in the sphere of the marketplace for health-related products and services.
I wish to acknowledge and thank consumer activist E. Patrick Curry, for his collaboration on previous presentation of some of the material included in this response [133].
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Gorski T, "Do The Eisenberg Data Hold Up?" Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine 1999;3(2):62-69 available online at
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Mencimer S "Scorin' with Orrin: How the gentleman from Utah made it easier for kids to buy steroids, speed, and Spanish fly," Washington Monthly September 2001, available online at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0109.mencimer2.html
Hulse R Annals of Improbable Research 1999 September/October; 5(5):21.
Utian WH "Is There an 'Alternate' Menopasue Management?" Menopause Management 1999 Sept/Oct page 6.
Kessler DA "Cancer and Herbs," editorial, The New England Journal of Medicine 2000 342(23):1742-3.
Angell M Kassirer JP NEJM 1999; 340:566.
http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qa-top.html
Blendon RJ, DesRoches CM, Benson JM, Brodie M, Altman DE "Americans' views on the use and regulation of dietary supplements," Arch Intern Med 2001 Mar 26;161(6):805-10.
The text of the bill is available by search at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas2.html
Schardt D "Memory Pills -- Mostly Forgettable" Nutrition Action Healthletter 2001 September pages 9-11.
Satel S Taranto J "The Alternative Medicine Scam: Bogus Bee Pollen," The New Republic 1996 January 8 page 24.
ScienceScope "Lobbying Blitz Attacks Alternative Medicine," Science 1997 277:169.
Sampson, WI, personal communication.
Moss RW "The Cancer Industry: The Classic Expose on the Cancer Establishment," 1996 Equinox Press posted at http://www.ralphmoss.com/caind3.html
Ibid.
Marshall E "The Politics of Alternative Medicine," Science 1994 265:2000-2002.
"NIH OAM Director Resigns; Herbert Calls For Investigation Of Appointees," NCAHF News 1994 Sept/Oct available online at http://www.ncahf.org/nl/1994/9-10.html
Jarvis WT "Berkley Bedell" available online at http://www.ncahf.org/articles/a-b/bedell.html
"NIH OAM Director Resigns; Herbert Calls For Investigation Of Appointees," NCAHF Newsletter 1994 17(5) Sept/Oct available online at http://www.ncahf.org/nl/1994/9-10.html
Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D., Brooklyn, N.Y. posted at http://www.ralphmoss.com/nytimes1.html; 10/1/2001
"Notes From Ann's Diary -- A Talk Given in 1996" at http://store.yahoo.com/annieappleseedproject/andiarofhers.html
http://www.garynull.com/Documents/ReproductiveCancers.htm
Ross B "People Against Cancer: An Open letter to anyone dealing with cancer from the son of a cancer victim." June 29, 1998
http://www.peopleagainstcancer.com/cancer_truth.htm
Stix, Gary "Profile: Wayne B. Jonas," Scientific American 1996 October available online at http://www.sciam.com/1096issue/1096profile.html
Jonas, Wayne B and Jacobs, Jennifer, Healing With Homeopathy: the Complete Guide, Warner Books 1995.
Vandenbroucke JP "Homoeopathy Trials: Going Nowhere," Lancet 1997; 350:824.
Jonas WB "The Homeopathy Debate," J Altern Complement Med 2000 Jun;6(3):213-5.
http://www.noetic.org/Ions/publications/55frontiers_jonas.htm
http://www.scientificexploration.org/meetings/20th.html
At a hearing on Monday, December 4, 2000 (Afternoon Session) Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Room 800 200 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, D.C., posted at http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/meetings/transcript_12_4_00_afternoon.html
ScienceScope: "Lobbying Blitz Attacks Alternative Medicine," Science 1997; 277:169.
Goodenough, Ursula and Park, Robert L. "Buying Snake Oil with Tax Dollars," The New York Times January 3, 1996, pg. A15.
Donlan, Thomas G. "Official Malpractice," Barron's March 24, 1997 page 70.
ABC News 20/20 program "Controversial Cancer Treatment," June 16, 2000 available online at http://more.abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_000616_cancer_feature.html
http://nccam.nih.gov/ne/occam-testimony.html
This is the correct spelling of Dr. Targ's first name. It is misspelled "Elizabeth" on the NCCAM website at http://nccam.nih.gov/research/grants/rfb/combined_fy00.htm
Grant Cost Spreadsheets obtained from NCCAM by an FOIA request in late 2000.
Ibid.
Cromer, Alan, "Pathological Science: An Update," chapter in Kendrick Frazier, Encounters With the Paranormal, Prometheus Press, Amherst, NY, 1998
Gilovich, Thomas, "Belief In ESP," chapter 10 in How We Know What Isn't So, Free Press, New York 1991.
Targ R Harary K, The Mind Race: Understanding and Using Psychic Abilities, New York, NY: Villard Books, 1984; 96-99.
Gardner, Martin, "Distant Healing and Elisabeth Targ", Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2001; 12-14. Available online at http://www.csicop.org/si/2001-03/fringe-watcher.html
Rosa L, Rosa E, Sarner L, Barrett S. "A Close Look At Therapeutic Touch," JAMA 1998 Apr 1;279(13):1005-10.
http://www.therapeutic-touch.org/Crisis/boardsuggestions.htm
http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=8&pageid=74&pgtype=1
http://www.esalenctr.org/display/conference.cfm?ID=8
NCCAM Meeting Minutes, February 6, 2001 available online at http://nccam.nih.gov/an/advisory/naccam/minutes_new/minutes_0201.html
http://www.bastyr.edu/research/projects
http://www.ions.org/ions/about/board.asp
http://www.cpmc.org/services/ihh/about/cmriprojects.html
Russell Targ and Keith Harary, The Mind Race: Understanding and Using Psychic Abilities, New York, NY: Villard Books, 1984; 44.
http://www.whps.com/misaha/cantwell.html
Druckman, Daniel, and Bjork, Robert A., eds., 1991. In the Mind's Eye: Enhancing Human Performance. Washington. DC; National Academy Press, cited in Hunt, Morton, The Story of Psychology, 1993 Doubleday, New York NY, page 632.
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Stokstad, Erik Science June 2, 2000; 288:1568.
Maull, Samuel "Coffee Enema Doctor Sentenced," Associated Press, April 20, 2000.
Interview with Barry Chowka published in Nutrition Science News, September. 1996 http://www.naturalhealthvillage.com/newsletter/15july00/interview.htm
Burston, Daniel, The Wing of Madness: The Life and Work of R. D. Laing, Cambridge, Mass; Harvard University Press; 1996: 79-92
Ibid, pp. 51-61
Ibid, pp. 125-131
Articles on this rebirthing death are located at http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/candace/
Gordon, James S., The Golden Guru, Lexington, Mass; The Stephen Greene Press; 1987. Notable passages from The Golden Guru: (a) Dr. Gordon describes his own "rebirthing" in Chapter 3 "Surrender to Bhagwan." pp 86-89. At the hands of a naked female therapist, Dr. Gordon recounted "a replay of my descent through the birth canal" leaving him "flailing on the mat, squalling like a newborn," feeling "gratitude and love, not so general now as in groups, but focused on Rajneesh, on his generosity." (b) On pages 84-86, Dr. Gordon defends the use of violent psychotherapies short of killing, which did happen at the Rajneesh's commune in India. He writes that he is "not against fighting in groups" and that the Rajneesh's followers "believed that the violent confrontations -- even their own bad bruises and broken limbs -- had been a small and necessary price to pay for the freedom they now felt from past traumas and inhibitions, for the perspective they had gained on their own sadism and masochism." (c) On page 114, Dr. Gordon defends the Rajneesh' s collection of 93 Rolls Royces at the Oregon commune. "In displaying his wealth so conspicuously, in ignoring accusations of selfishness," writes Dr. Gordon, "Rajneesh was mocking the preconceptions of his New World audience, who -- particularly the Christians -- tended to associate spirituality with poverty, modesty, charity." (d) On page 148, Dr. Gordon defends the Rajneesh's recruitment and exploitation of the homeless and mentally ill, saying that the guru's "program, in spite of its inequities and exploitativeness, does seem a great improvement over what these men have been offered in city and state mental hospitals and shelters. Those who stay are functioning, useful members of a loving community. They seem to have a real opportunity to change." (e) In his concluding paragraphs on page 245, Dr. Gordon writes exults in Rajneesh's "vision of a loving, cooperative community dedicated to the creation of new men and women living in harmony with their own nature and the natural world. For me, it is not finally a question of agreeing or disagreeing with Rajneesh, of praising or condemning him or his sannyasins. It is, rather, a matter of learning from him and them, of appreciating his remarkable talents and gifts and recognizing his perverse uses of them, of seeing myself in him and his sannyasins, of using his extraordinary story and strange, as yet unfinished journey as a mirror for my own."
Torok TJ, Tauxe RV, Wise RP, Livengood JR, Sokolow R, Mauvais S, Birkness KA, Skeels MR, Horan JM, Foster LR., "A large community outbreak of salmonellosis caused by intentional contamination of restaurant salad bars." JAMA 1997 Aug 6;278(5):389-95.
He is listed as a plenary speaker at a 1999 "Life After Death" conference of parapsychologists and mystics at http://www.pathwaysminneapolis.org/lifedeath.html. He has also appeared at conferences of followers of the noted "orgone energy" pseudo-psychologist Wilhelm Reich http://members.aol.com/mannionabc/ and has advocated that resources be devoted to researching "orgone accumulators."
Dr. John Mack's PEER website can be viewed at http://www.peer-mack.org/learnmore.html
Defense expert: "Nichols had no outrage over Waco;" Denver Post Online, June 3, 1998, http://63.147.65.175/bomb/bomb0603.htm; Also, "Judge to Sentence Nichols for Oklahoma bombing", CNN June 4, 1998
The Quackwatch website lists Gordon's book on these conferences, Comprehensive Cancer Care (James S. Gordon, MD, and Sharon Curtin, 2000) on its list of non-recommended Cancer information books at http://www.quackwatch.com/00AboutQuackwatch/altseek.html
Alternative Services: A Special Study (Final Report to The President's Commission on Mental Health of the Special Study on Alternative Mental Health Services, James S. Gordon, Director)), in Task Panel Reports Submitted to the President's Commission on Mental Health, President's Commission on Mental Health, Volume II, Appendix. 1978.
http://atc.utmb.edu/altmed/books.htm
http://atc.utmb.edu/altmed/
http://atc.utmb.edu/altmed/faculty.htm
http://atc.utmb.edu/altmed/spirit-acknowledge.htm
http://atc.utmb.edu/altmed/spirit-bibliogr.htm
http://www.eastwestqi.com/html/home.html
http://www.eastwestqi.com/html/dr__chow.html
http://members.aol.com/eastwestqi/clinic.htm
http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/meetings/transcript_9_8_00_s1_2.html
http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/meetings/transcript_12_4_00_morning.html
Oleson TD, Kroening RJ, Bresler DE "An experimental evaluation of auricular diagnosis: the somatotopic mapping or musculoskeletal pain at ear acupuncture points." Pain 1980 Apr;8(2):217-29
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http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/tcj/2000/oct/oct2000twarner.htm
http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/tcj/1998/feb/feb1998b.htm
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http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/media/gutierrez.htm
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http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/tcj/2001/jan/jan2001g.htm
http://www.crahealth.org/news/2000-12-dr_warren.htm
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http://www.wshmc.org/www.wshmc.org/fam_prac/bios.html
Lilienfeld SO "EMDR Treatments: Less Than Meets the Eye?"
http://www.absame.org/Mt00schd.htm
http://www.dovehealthalliance.com/management.htm
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http://www.rationalradio.com/e006.html
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http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/meetings/transcript_01_23_01_part2.html
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http://www.acupuncturetoday.com/archives/2000/oct/10clinton.html
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http://www.fihm.com/
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Kolata, Gina "At Dinner With Dean Ornish -- A Promoter of Programs To Foster Heart Health," The New York Times December 29,1998 available online at http://members.aol.com/annullas/newstory/nytimes.htm
Ibid.
http://www.insight-books.com/new/0062502522.html
http://www.twbookmark.com/books/20/0446673358/
http://www.cmbm.org/
http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/meetings/transcript_000713_content.html
http://newsun.com/fair.html
http://www.cmbm.org/conferences/ccc98/transcripts/fair.html
http://www.tomsofmaine.com/
http://www.saltwater.org
http://208.5.178.253/products/wellnsextract.htm
http://www.nihb.org/home/profiles.htm#Traditional Medicine
http://www.rehabpub.com/departments/42001/2.asp
"Would 'Alternative Medicine' Save Health Care $$$?" NCAHF Newsletter 1993 May/June 16(3):1 available online at http://www.ncahf.org/nl/1993/5-6.html
http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~mbernste/ethics.dutytodie.html
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Gorski T, Curry EP, "White House Commission Stacked against Science," Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine 2001;5(1):7-8.
