here, I cite from a recent article by Steven Salzberg at his Forbes blog regarding CAM/AM/IM at the University of Maryland [see 001., below]:
001. Steven Salzberg writes at Forbes in "Why Medical Schools Should Not Teach Integrative Medicine (2011-04-21)[my comments are in bold]:
"pseudoscience is insinuating itself into our medical schools across the nation, going by the name 'integrative medicine'. Integrative medicine is just the latest buzzword for a collection of superstitions, myths, and pseudoscience that has gone by various names over the years [...aka] holistic medicine [...] alternative medicine [...] complementary and alternative medicine [...] and lately integrative medicine [...]";
naturopathy has paralleled this lineage. A Google.com web search of: "naturopathic alternative" brings me to this CT ND's site, and "naturopathic complementary" brings me to this Ontario ND's site, and "naturopathic integrative" gets me to this Arizona ND's site.
"CAM is moving into the medical curriculum at respectable medical schools, including the University of Maryland [..] I’m a professor at U. Maryland College Park, part of the same system as U. Maryland Medicine [...] how unfortunate that this pseudoscience has infiltrated its way into the medical curriculum, and that the UMM Center is, in essence, mis-training medical students [...] UM Medicine is undermining its own scientific and educational mission [...] someone ought to tell him that integrative medicine has no place in a 21st century medical curriculum [...]";
as someone who went through a similar mis-training, I concur.
"perhaps the best way to reverse this trend is to call attention to it [...] what’s going on at Maryland’s medical school? [...] its clinical services include acupuncture, homeopathy, reflexology, reiki, qi gong [...] the practices lumped together are bad medicine [...] all of them are, well, nonsense [...] pseudoscientific practices";
hear, hear.
"homeopathic treatments are just water [...] the other treatments offered by the UMM Center are no better. Their qi gong brochure explains that 'sickness, pain or physical disorders are the result of qi blockage, or unbalanced qi in the body. Qi gong practice helps to balance the qi system in the body and break the qi blockage(s) to recover health.' There’s no scientific basis for qi – it is simply magical thinking. The brochure, though, claims that qigong will give you 'an increased resistance to illness through a stronger immune system.' None of these claims have any good science to back them up."
hear, hear.
No comments:
Post a Comment