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Re: NY TIMES SLAMS ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE ON FRONT PAGE



In article <31CC32D4.6EA2@aismkt.com>, William Marzahn <wmarzahn@aismkt.com> writes:
> Della Noche wrote:
> > 
> > Nimnodius <nodrog@itsa.ucsf.edu> wrote:
> > >John:
> > >
> > >I noticed in your recitation that you failed to actually point out what
> > >Gina Kolata's piece said that was WRONG.
> > 
> > I am snipping some of John's comments here for brevity only.  The
> > original article is at news:4q6c9i$he2@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com
> > 
> > Use this as an URL and you'll get to the original.  Important info is in
> > the beginning of this post.
> > I would like to read this myself. Unfortunately, the article is gone. 
> Does anyone know of another source?
> 
> Bill


From dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!jhammell Tue Jun 18 07:18:59 1996
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 07:02:28 -0700
From: John Hammell <jhammell@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: NY TIMES SLAMS ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE ON FRONT PAGE
                    ON FRINGES OF HEALTH CARE,
                    UNTESTED THERAPIES THRIVE
           By Gina Kolata NY Times 6/17/96 Front Page

[Note: This is the first of a 3 part series. Check the 6/18 NY
Times for the 2nd article titled "In Quests Outside Mainstream, Medical 
Projects Rewrite Rules" (Supports the myth of the "double blind" while 
condemning outcomes based research as "unscientific quackery" The third 
will come out at a later date.
They will probably try to time it to interfere with the Senate
Hearing on S.1035 Access to Medical Treatment Act, which was
originally scheduled for 6/18, but has been postponed til sometime
in July. (A date has not been scheduled.) Phone numbers of Gina
Kolata and various people interviewed are provided at the end in
case you have anything to say to them. Please post your opposing Op
Ed Piece. Please forward this article! Encourage everyone to lobby
for S.1035/ HR 2019 The Access to Medical Treatment Act. Especially
lobby those members of the Senate Labor Committee who have not yet
cosponsored. They are: Dodd, Coats, Kassebaum, Mikulski, Kennedy,
Wellstone, Ashcroft, Gregg, De Wine, Frist, Gorton. Also call your
own 2 Senators and Congressman. All can be reached via Capital
Switchboard: 1-800-962-3524]


     From green algae pills to coffee enemas, from acupuncture to
aromatherapy, alternative medical treatments have grown into a big
business and a powerful force in modern medicine, alarming many in
the medical establishment and largely escaping scrutiny from
regulators.
     
     Although folk remedies have been around for centuries, often
co-existing with the treatments offered by orthodox medicine,
medical experts say that over the past 10 years, more people have
been turning to more kinds of alternative therapies than ever
before. A national telephone survey, published in the New England
Journal of Medicine in 1993, found that one out of three Americans
used unconventional therapies which can range from taking vitamin
C for a cold to going to Mexican clinics for outlawed cancer
treatments. The survey also found that Americans spent $13.7
billion in 1991 on such treatments.
     
     Another national survey, published in 1994, found that 60% of
doctors had at some time referred patients to practitioners of
alternative medicine. The highly prestigious Beth Israel Hospital
in Boston, which is associated with Harvard Medical School,
recently set up a center for alternative medicine, as did Columbia
University. And five years ago, the Federal Office of Alternative
Medicine was established as part of the National Institutes of
Health to provide the public with information on alternative
treatments and to find out what works.
     
     A growing number of health insurance companies, which
increasingly set the standards for care, now cover once obscure
treatments like naturopathy. Practitioners of Naturopathy say that
disease arises from blockages of a flow of a life force throughout
the body and that cures follow from treatments like acupuncture and
homeopathy, treating patients with infinitesimal amounts of
substances that in larger doses might produce symptoms of disease.
Meanwhile, many makers of alternative remedies have been reporting
record sales. This financial growth is a direct result, analysts
say, of a 1994 Federal law curbing the regulation of the industry
by the Food and Drug Administration.
     
     Many doctors, scientists and Government officials sharply
criticize the practice of alternative medicine, saying that at best
it does no harm and at worst it can do real danger. While
conventional medicine adopts procedures that are consistent with
scientific hypotheses, and drugs must be stringently tested and
approved by the F.D.A., alternative medicine practitioners can use
therapies based on whims or discredited science, and their methods
have not undergone rigorous tests. 
     
     The critics of alternative medicine point to reports about the
dangers posed by some alternative treatments. Herbal preparations
like ma huang, used in dietary supplements and widely available
mood-altering products, have caused deaths, as have coffee enemas,
said to treat cancer and other diseases by detoxifying the body.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has documented cases
of kidney failure and death in people who have had chelation
therapy- the intravenous injection of the synthetic chelating agent
EDTA- advertised as a treatment for heart disease and ailments like
Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and sexual impotency.
     
     The very name "alternative medicine" is Orwellian newspeak,
implying that it is a viable option, said Dr. Marcia Angell,
executive director of the New England Journal of Medicine. "Its a
new name for snake oil," she said. "Theres medicine that works and
medicine that doesn't work."
     
     Dr. Arthur Kaplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the
University of Pennsylvania, said, "Some say, "Look, why not let
desperately ill people do what they want? Why stand between them
and the latest piece of shark cartilage?"
     
     But he disagrees. Dr. Caplan is gravely concerned, he said,
that because of alternative medicine, some patients will reject
reliable mainstream treatments. Practitioners of alternative
medicine, he said, encourage patients to think that "somehow, just
by being outside the mainstream, nothing is risky or dangerous or
has side effects." It is, he said, "ridiculous to say that
chemotherapy can cause side effects but chelation therapy or coffee
enemas, thats completely beyond risk."
     
     Alternative medicine encompasses a range of treatments outside
those commonly accepted by the medical establishment. Generally,
such treatments have not passed clinical trials. Although many
medicinal herbs have pharmacologically active components, the focus
of alternative medicine is not to isolate and test these
ingredients.
     
     Alternative medicine includes therapies offered by
chiropractors, acupuncturists and homeopaths. Also included may be 
treatments like aromatherapy, the use of aromatic oil for
relaxation, which is also promoted as a cure for hundreds of
diseases. Alternative medicines include herbs, taken for various
ills; green algae pills, said to foster alertness, and shark
cartilage, promoted as a natural cure for cancer.
     
     The regulation of alternative practices varies. All states
license chiropractors, but some license acupuncturists,
naturopaths, homeopaths, and practitioners of Chinese medicine.
Some practitioners are M.D.s or have D.O.s, doctor of osteopathy
degrees, but others come from a broad range of backgrounds, ranging
from correspondence courses to academic programs in schools that
specialize in the field.
     
     Some supporters of alternative medicine say that it offers a
much needed antidote to high-tech, impersonal, cost-driven health
care, and that even if the treatments are not cures, they could
have powerful placebo effects. They say it emphasizes a different
view of health, one based on natural healing and nontoxic
interventions. Dr.Andrew Weil, author of the best selling book
"Spontaneous Healing" (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995) and director of the
program in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona
College of Medicine, said that alternative medicine "resonates with
the spirit of the times."
     
     But the critics also point to reports of people with serious
illnesses who have failed to pursue standard treatments in favor of
alternative treatments that have not worked.
     
     Anita Gergasko, of Hazlet, N.J., was 58 when she died in a
hospice from metastatic breast cancer, which she had fought for
seven years. She had a mastectomy, her husband George Gergasko aid,
but refused her doctors urging that she have chemotherapy, treating
herself instead with massive doses of vitamin C and herbs. when the
cancer later spread to her brain, she agreed to chemotherapy but
also took megadoses of vitamin B-12, which can counteract the
chemotherapy drug she was taking.
     
     "On her deathbed she made me promise that I would see to it
that nobody else in her family and none of her friends would get
involved with this stuff," Mr.Gergasko said.

THE APPROACH
A Reliance
On Anecdotes

     The rise in alternative treatments can be explained in part by
the limits of modern medicine. Even though conventional, science-
based medicine has reached unsurpassed heights of technical
sophistication, it is still far from perfect. For many ills, it has
nothing very effective to offer; doctors can seem hurried and
brusque, and conventional treatments can be costly or painful.
     
     But alternative therapies, unlike conventional ones, have not
passed rigorous scientific tests showing that they are safe and
effective. Generally, the only assurance patients have that
alternative treatments will work is anecdotal evidence from other
patients and practitioners. That dismays leaders of conventional
medicine, who say that such evidence is not reliable because
patients and their practitioners fervently desire success and are
inclined to judge a treatment more promising than it is.
     
     Dr.Weil, of the Arizona program, said he realized that
alternative medicine treatments had not met scientific standards
for efficacy ad safety. But "a great many things in standard
medicine are not proven either- we just do them," he said.
     
     Doctors do sometimes find that conventional treatments are ill
advised. For example, doctors no longer advise stress reduction to
treat ulcers. Even reducing the amount of salt in the diet is
increasingly in question.
     
     But Dr. Caplan said Dr. Weil's response blurred the
distinction between conventional and alternative medicine.
"Medicine at least has a tendency to be self-correcting and self
critical," he said. "In lots of areas of alternative medicine, I
haven't seen anybody even admit to the possibility of error."
     
     Dr. Weil said that as a practitioner, rather than a
researcher, he was satisfied with a "different standard of proof,"
like reports of patients who say they were helped. For disorders
with no know cure, Dr. Weil said, "If I am faced with an immediate
need for a treatment that might alleviate suffering or possibly
promote a cure, and if I can assure myself that a treatment is
safe, it is reasonable to try it."
     
     But Dr.Richard A. Friedman, director of psychopharmacology at
New York Hospital- Cornell Medical Center, said, "Not only is it
impossible for Dr. Weil to know if an untested treatment is safe,
he also cannot know if it is dangerous." Untested treatments, Dr.
Friedman said, "range from harmless placebos to deadly poisons, and
the consumer has now way of knowing which is which."

The Debate
Natural Healing,
Or Quackery?

     Dr.Weil and others who support various forms of alternative
medicine say it represents the rediscovery of a different way of
thinking about health, one that forsakes rigid medical models and
looks instead to natural ways of helping the body heal itself.
     
     Dr. David M. Eisenberg, who directs the new alternative
medical center in Boston and who conducted the national telephone
survey on alternative medicine said in an interview that for many
people, alternative medicine might be a way of taking charge of
their health or finding a practitioner who will take the time to
listen to them. For many, the only harm is to their pocketbooks.
     
     But in a study published in 1991 in the New England Journal of
Medicine, Dr.Barrie R. Cassileth, an adjunct social psychologist at
the University of North Carolina who studies patients experiences
with alternative cancer therapies, found- to her surprise, she
said- that terminal cancer patients treated with coffee enemas and
other alternative treatments were more miserable than those treated
with chemotherapy and radiation and that their survival time was
the same.
     
     Dr. Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist and a board member
of the National Council Against Health Fraud, sees another danger
in the growth of alternative medicine, which he calls "quackery."
     
     "Quackery isn't necessarily about selling products or
services- its about selling misbeliefs," Dr. Barrett said. "For a
quack to thrive, he has to promote unwarranted distrust. If you can
convince someone that the Government is not going to give you
accurate information on any health matter, that doctors and
researchers cannot be trusted, than that person will be damaged. If
you are not sick, these misbeliefs may not cause you serious harm,
but if you are sick, they may kill you."
     
     Still, several voices within orthodox medicine have softened
their criticism of alternative practices, though often for reasons
that do not include a belief in their efficacy. At the American
Cancer Society, a spokeswoman, Susan Islam, said the term "unproven
methods" had recently been replaced by "complementary and
alternative methods" because of a concern with "political
correctness." The term "unproven" she said, "is not P.C."

The Regulations
Industry Flourishes 
Under New Rules

     In 1994, Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and
Education Act, which essentially did away with regulations on
alternative medicines that called themselves foods or dietary
supplements. Virtually overnight, it revolutionized the industry.
     
     Under the new law, products like herbs, shark cartilage or
vitamins can be sold and promoted as cures for diseases or as
treatments to enhance health as long as the claims were not made on
the product labels. Manufacturers can make product claims in books,
pamphlets and signs in stores where the products are sold. Before,
manufacturers could make no health claims that the F.D.A had not
approved.
     
     The leading supporter of the act was Senator Orrin G. Hatch,
Republican from Utah, a state whose dietary supplement industry has
sales of $1 billion a year. Dietary supplements include vitamins
and formulas for gaining weight, as well as herbs, shark cartilage
and melatonin.
     
     Critics of the new law say it has exposed cancer patients to
outrageous claims for useless treatments. Dr. Charles Myers,
director of the cancer center for the University of Virginia, says
the law has "opened Pandora's box."
     
     But Mr. Hatch, who takes dietary supplements, is proud of his
role in getting the law passed. "These products have worked for
people and helped people," he said. "You show me a doctor who says
they haven't helped, and I'll show you a prejudiced guy."
     
     Some alternative treatments are not regulated because they
existed long before there were any regulations. Homeopathic
remedies, for example, have never been subjected to testing for
effectiveness because they were around before the F.D.A. had laws
requiring that. They can stay on the market because the F.D.A.
considers them safe.
     Other treatments are permitted because practitioners use a
legal product; chelation therapy uses EDTA, which is approved for
lead-poisoning therapy. Treatments like coffee enemas and fruit
juice diets for cancer are not regulated by the F.D.A. because they
do not involve drugs.
     
     By all accounts, the alternative medicine business has grown
explosively in recent years. In 1995, the stock of publicly traded
dietary-supplement companies increased in value by up to 80
percent; so far this year it is up 50 percent, said Matthew Patsky,
an analyst for the Boston firm Adams, Harkness and Hill and a
specialist in the dietary supplement business. The 1995 increase
for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 33.5 percent; for this
year it is 10.4 percent.
     
     After the 1994 act became law, Mr.Patsky said, "there was a
recognition that there was not much risk in selling dietary
supplements." So investors became interested, and that "has created
an opportunity for these companies to go ahead and raise money in
the public markets," he added.
     
     The market for dietary supplements has grown by about 15
percent a year in the past few years, and one part of it, the
herbal market, has grown by about 25 percent a year, he said. In
contrast, the market for brand name foods has grown about 2 to 3
percent a year, Mr.Patsky said.
     
     Purveyors of specific therapies report unprecedented public
interest. The American Colon Therapy Association, which promotes
colonic irrigation, reports a 50 percent growth in the number of
practitioners in the past year in the United States, with about 500
now practicing.
     
     Alternative medicine is finding more acceptance among
insurers. In 1992, the American Western Life Insurance Company
offered a plan that used naturopaths rather than conventional
doctors. That plan accounts for 25 percent of new business this
year, a representative of the company said.
     
     Richard Coorsh, a spokesman for the Health Insurance
Association of America, said several state legislatures were now
requiring insurance companies to cover various alternative
therapies, like chiropractor and naturopath services. Insurance
plans in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut must pay for
chiropractors, and New York insurance plans must pay for
podiatrists. But so far, insurance companies in New York, New
Jersey and Connecticut don't have to pay for other alternative
treatments.
     
     "When you examine how much money is being spent," said
Dr.Raymond Kenhard, an oncologist at John's Hopkins University and
president of the American Cancer Society, "you really would demand
that there is some evidence or what you are receiving."
_____________________________________________________________

Please forward this article! Please refer to my notes about calling
members of Congress in support of S.1035 / HR 2019 The Access to
Medical Treatment Act. Please send your rebuttal to this horrendous
article to the NY Times National News Dept at 229 W.43 St. NY, NY
10036. (They don't give out a fax number.)

If you have anything to say to Gina Kolata of the NY Times, she can
be called via 212-556-1234. 

Call Dr.Marcia Angell, executive editor of the New England Journal
of Medicine at 617-734-9800, FAX 617-734-4457

Call Dr.Arthur Kaplan at Center of Bio Ethics, University of
Pennsylvania at 215-898-3055.

If you'd like to see the Office of Alternative Medicine publish a
rebuttal, call their press secretary, Anita Green at 202-496-1712. 
Be sure to call your Congressman and Senators to ask that they
cosponsor HR 2019 S.1035 The Access to Medical Treatment Act- which
allows an individual to be treated by any licensed health care
practitioner with any treatment method they desire as long as:

1) The treatment causes no serious harm other than reactions
experienced with routinely used medical treatments for the same
medical condition and,

2) The patient is fully informed about the treatment and its
possible side effects. This is a freedom of choice issue. The US is
currently ranked a dismal 17th in life expectancy, and high medical
costs are breaking the back of this country. Lost cost alternatives
will help improve the health of Americans due to their preventive
nature. The Access to Medical Treatment Act opens up a closed
system to the use of alternative treatments, encouraging free
market competition which will help bring medical costs down.
.-


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