Homeopathy, Naturopathy, Acupuncture and Kind Will Tar UC Irvine Med. School - LA Times

here, big money thrown in the ring to support junk thought and methods:

001. in "A $200-million Donation Threatens to Tar UC Irvine's Medical School as a Haven for Quacks", at latimes.com, Michael Hiltzik reports:

"the very terms 'integrative health' and 'integrative medicine' raise hackles among physicians who say they’re code for introducing unproven and debunked nostrums into a curriculum that should be based exclusively on scientific evidence. Among the approaches with little or no scientific support that get 'integrated' are acupuncture, herbal concoctions, and homeopathy and naturopathy [...]"; 

hear, hear. 

"the only reason ‘integrative medicine’ exists is to integrate quackery into medicine,' says David Gorski, a professor of surgery and oncology at Wayne State University who pursues pseudoscience and quackery through the blogs Science-Based Medicine and Respectful Insolence [...]";

agreed.

"homeopathy is one 'alternative' medical approach that is conclusively regarded as useless, even by experts who encourage study of other nontraditional therapies. Its idea, which dates back to the 18th century, is to treat diseases with substances that create the same symptoms, but at such a diluted level that no trace of the substance remains in a dose chemically indistinguishable from water. The concept has been thoroughly tested and thoroughly debunked [...]";

oh, snap!

"there’s no question that the Samuelis’ gift could do a tremendous amount of good — $200 million will go far to jump UCI up into the front ranks of academic medical institutions. But its pedigree also will bring a lot of scrutiny into whether the university is maintaining its explicit commitment to scientific rigor.  Some people doubt it can. 'Probably there are some people at UCI who think, ‘We’ll accept the money, and just do the science-based stuff like nutrition and massage,’' Novella says. 'But you can’t promote homeopathy and naturopathy and also say you’re going to have high standards of science and evidence. They’re mutually incompatible.'" 

agreed.  But, I don't recall Novella speaking out about the naturopathy at his Yale employer.