Little Quacks Book Characters' title='Little Quacks Book Characters' />Life for women before Roe v. Wade was just as unpleasant as you imagined. In 1976, in his book The 12th Planet, the late author Zecharia Sitchin 19202010 introduced the controversial hypothesis that modern humans did not evolve. Rdi9yaZZHJ4/maxresdefault.jpg' alt='Little Quacks New Friend Lesson Plan' title='Little Quacks New Friend Lesson Plan' />Little Quacks BedtimePatients lose Science Based Medicine. We write frequently about naturopathy here because, of all the dubious pseudoscientific medical disciplines out there, naturopathy along with chiropractic has achieved the most respectability. Indeed, as I like to point out in my own specialty breast cancer, the Society for Integrative Oncology SIO even admits naturopaths as members. Indeed, the immediate past president of SIO is a naturopath and, depressingly, faculty at my medical alma mater, the University of Michigan, as was the SIO president in 2. So entrenched are naturopaths in SIO that they have been prominent co authors on SIO clinical guidelines papers, like this set of breast cancer guidelines, with two naturopaths as co authors, one as first author. Basically, in academia at least, naturopaths have certainly surpassed chiropractors in terms of seeming respectability, even though they promote alternative medical treatments that, as I pointed out two weeks ago, kill cancer patients dead through lack of effective treatment. I was reminded of this unfortunate infiltration of naturopaths when I saw a story yesterday from, of all places, New Zealand, Naturopathy under microscope after cancer sufferers speak from under shadow of death. It tells the story of two cancer patients who relied on naturopaths for treatment and didnt live to regret it, at least not long. Consider this to be a sequel to my post from two weeks ago, only focusing on naturopaths. An almost certainly preventable death. Naturopaths sell themselves to cancer patients as offering treatments that are natural, although Ive always been puzzled how many treatments offered by naturopaths like high dose intravenous vitamin C, functional medicine, or various diagnostic tests like thermography are any more natural than what conventional medicine offers. What is really most attractive to patients is the claim that they can treat cancer without the toxicity associated with known effective treatments for cancer, such as radiation, surgery, and, most feared of all, chemotherapy. Unfortunately, when patients with highly treatable cancers believe these claims, the result can be fatal. It is late July. An Auckland woman sits at her dining room table, frail, cosseted in a wool knit beanie, brittle wisps of hair poking out. She knows her time is running out. She doesnt know it, but she will be dead in two weeks. First, though, she wants to speak out to call for regulation of naturopaths after her bitter experience with alternative therapies. From my point of view the naturopath has used people like me as guinea pigs, the Auckland woman told Stuff. I dont think naturopaths should try to heal cancer. The Burzynski Clinic is a medical clinic in Texas, United States founded in 1976 and offering unproven cancer treatment. It is best known for the controversial. Little Quacks Bath BookI trusted in naturopathy, I dont trust in it any more. This is the price patients with treatable cancers can end up paying for trusting naturopaths. This patient, who is not named in the story, didnt even have cancer, but rather a premalignant condition known as ductal carcinoma in situ DCIS. Ive written about DCIS on multiple occasions, because it is a condition whose management is becoming less straightforward as we understand more about the biology of the disease. Realtree Font here. The reason is that not all DCIS progresses to life threatening breast cancer in a womans lifetime indeed, most probably do not, to the point where watchful waiting is being discussed as a viable treatment option for women with low grade, low risk DCIS. There is a clinical trial, the Low Risk DCIS LORIS trial, comparing outcomes between immediate surgery and active monitoring for low risk DCIS. Close to 1. 00 of women with DCIS women should survive their disease with treatment. Here is this patients story. It began in 2. 01. In July 2. 01. 3 she had been diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ DCIS, a pre cancerous breast condition. Her oncologist told her she had a 5. I was shocked and scared of surgery, Id never had surgery. Then you face one breast, both breasts, no breasts, you start looking for alternatives. Unaware some DCIS strains are more aggressive than others, she believed time was on her side and she could try alternative medicine. We dont have any information on the features of this womans DCIS that would allow me to estimate her risk. For instance, we dont know from this story whether it was high or low grade, low grade being lower risk. We dont know if it had high risk features, like comedo necrosis, which portends a high risk of progression to invasive cancer. I was also puzzled by the recommendation for immediate bilateral mastectomy. Mastectomy is usually not indicated for DCIS. Most DCIS lesions can be treated with breast conserving surgery lumpectomy followed by radiation. Mastectomy is reserved for cases of diffuse or extensive DCIS in which all the disease cant be removed in by lumpectomy. Bilateral mastectomy is rarely indicated for DCIS, the main exception being when both breasts are involved with extensive DCIS, a very uncommon situation. In fairness, some women with extensive DCIS in one breast and DCIS in the other breast amenable to mastectomy will opt, not necessarily inappropriately, for bilateral mastectomy, but this is usually the womans choice, and this article states that the oncologist recommended bilateral mastectomy. Again, no reason for this recommendation is provided in this news story so I dont know whether this patient had any of the indications for a bilateral mastectomy in DCIS. Id be willing to bet that she probably didnt and that this recommendation was probably a recommendation for massive overtreatment. I mention this because the aggressiveness of the recommended surgery almost certainly played a role in this Auckland womans disastrous decision. Whatever her reasons, though, this is how her story played out. The woman and her husband found a naturopath, whose name is never mentioned much to my irritation, having heard stories about her alleged success rate and discovered that she was affiliated with Cape Town University. Did they mean the University of Cape Town I wondered. The naturopath also advertised that she had an MDip. Nat. Herb from the South African College of Natural Medicines, which is apparently a degree in herbal medicine of some sort. This particular naturopath saw her and then followed up her treatments with Internet consultations. The naturopath continued treating the Auckland woman over the internet using words such as tumours and cancer. At this stage there is nothing to worry about, she emailed. Apart from a grueling regime of daily natural supplements, for a time the naturopath told her to simply apply ointment to her breasts. The woman emailed the naturopath photos of her bruised breasts Hi, those green spots definitely little tumours, the naturopath replied. It looks like there is just the start of cancer, would most probably have developed into major pictures A week later the Auckland woman sent more pictures. Wow, girl this looks great, the naturopath replied. The top one looks at this stage there is nothing to worry about you can just apply zambuck ointment to that to draw out the last anger and puss do you have that, can I courier you some. Now heres something I never figured out. Naturopaths contend that theirs is natural medicine that is much less toxic and causes many fewer side effects sometimes its claimed that there will be no side effects. Yet their treatment regimens are often quite onerous. How the Feds Fund Quacks. This article first appeared on Reason. Behind the dubious medical claims of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Deepak Chopra is a decades long strategy to promote alternative medicine to the American public. Twenty three years ago, the National Institutes of Health NIH began to investigate a wide variety of unconventional medical practices from around the world. Five and a half billion dollars later, the NIH has found no cures for disease. But it has succeeded in bringing every kind of quackeryfrom faith healing to homeopathyout of the shadows and into the heart of the American medical establishment. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health NCCIH, a part of the NIH, is largely the brainchild of a single person. In the 1. 98. 0s, Senator Tom Harkin D Iowa was convinced that bee pollen extract cured his hay fever. As the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee overseeing NIH funding, Harkin set aside 2 million to establish the NCCIHs forerunner, the Office of Alternative Medicine OAM. Harkin did not respond to multiple requests to participate in this story. The OAMs stated mission was to investigate the medical value of alternative therapies. Despite its minuscule budget, its mandate was massive. Almost any kind of unusual therapy could be considered alternative, spanning dozens of widely differing cultural traditions and historical eras. Everything from homeopathic remedies for arthritis to acupuncture for back pain to remote prayer for HIVAIDS to coffee enemas for fighting cancer was in its purview. Another looming challenge was bridging the ravine between the scientific establishment and the heterodox community of alternative medicine practitioners. The OAMs first director, Dr. Joseph Jacobs, seemed ideally suited to this task, as he belonged to both worlds. The son of a Mohawk mother and a part Cherokee father, Jacobs was raised on the Kahnawake Mohawk Reservation and had spent a lifetime navigating different cultures. As he recounts in his lively memoir, Mohawks on the Nile Journey of the Warrior Spirit, Jacobs used traditional Mohawk remedies long before earning degrees from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School and Yale Medical School. But Jacobss skill at multicultural maneuvering was no match for the OAMs politicized advisory council. The OAMs charter mandated that its 1. As a result, many on the council were unfamiliar with the rigors of scientific research. Many things that seem to be effective dont stand up to scientific research, but they still cure people, Representative Berkley Bedell D Iowa told the Journal of the American Medical Association, shortly after his appointment to the advisory council by Harkin in 1. If thats the case, then I hate to think we may squelch something by insisting it has to go through scientific investigation. Others had incentives to validate alternative therapies that were at odds with the OAMs stated mission of impartiality and objectivity. An original member of the advisory council, Deepak Chopra benefited from the imprimatur of the NIH years before Oprah Winfrey catapulted the New Age healer to national stardom. Four members of the council personally selected by Harkin had scant medical training yet were vocal advocates for alternative medicine. Trapped in a bureaucracy of politics and magical thinking, the science minded Jacobs didnt last long. Harkin and his cronies probably wanted somebody else, he tells Reason TV. But they wanted me to do their bidding. And I really couldnt do that. Under pressure to validate dubious treatments without scientific evidence, Jacobs resigned after only two years on the job. I prefer the ticks of Connecticut to the politics of Washington, he declared to The New York Times at the time of his departure. With Jacobs out of the picture, the advisory council was free to pursue its own vision of the future of American medicine. Over the objections of NIH Director Harold Varmus, Harkin elevated the Office of Alternative Medicine to the status of a national center. Rechristened as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine NCCAM, it enjoyed independent control of a skyrocketing budget. By 2. 01. 0, total yearly spending at the NIH on alternative medicine reached 5. The bloated budget funded long term studies of dozens of remedies, such as shark cartilage for cancer, St. Johns Wort for depression and acupuncture for pain. At the time, a few treatments seemed to hold reasonable promise. Many others had no plausible biological mechanism behind their hoped for effects and would have to violate fundamental laws of physics in order to work. Today, after billions spent investigating alternative treatments, no cures have been found. Perhaps NCCIHs most significant accomplishment has been to crack open the doors of the American medical establishment, a long sought after goal of many alternative practitioners. The University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine offers patients homeopathy. Even though NCCIHs own studies suggest that Reiki is useless, it hasnt stopped Dr. Oz from introducing the energy medicine to a new generation of surgeons at Columbia University, which is a major recipient of NCCIH funds. Even Harvard Medical School teaches alternative medicine. Does it even matter So what if patients pay a little bit more for treatments that dont work As long as alternative therapies do no harmpremum non nocere, as the venerable medical maxim goesand the placebo effect makes them feel a bit better, why bother opposing them Beyond the basic question of taxpayer dollars supporting quackery, the pursuit of unproven therapies can have tragic consequences. Following his diagnosis of a rare, treatable form of pancreatic cancer, Apple CEO Steve Jobs postponed medical treatment for nine months. Believing in the curative power of alternative medicine, Jobs tried acupuncture, bowel cleanses, herbs and a vegan diet. Although we will never know for sure, medical experts have speculated that Jobss faith in alternative medicine may have hastened his death. If so, its hardly an unusual event. Numerous reports of death and injury from alternative treatments have been documented at Whatstheharm. To be sure, even the best medical treatment comes with serious risks. But unlike standard medical care, the dangers associated with alternative treatments come with virtually no possibility of a health outcome better than a placebo. Although Harkin has retired from the Senate, state support for alternative medicine seems secure. States license chiropractors while opening up the Medicaid coffers to naturopaths. Alternative medicine has been written into the Affordable Care Act, though its uncertain how the Department of Health and Human Services will interpret the legislation. Even Hillary Clintons medical advisor, Dr. Mark Hyman, evangelizes his own brand of alternative medicine, known as functional medicine. And what about that bee pollen extract that inspired Harkin to start the Office of Alternative Medicine to begin with As with much of the rest of alternative medicine, scientific studies have long since debunked bee pollens alleged power to minimize hay fever or any other illness. Yet as a matter of faith, people continue to buy it. Think about it, Harkin, Dr. Jacobs muses. Your allergies can go away the next day when the pollen level goes down.