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Date : Fri Jun 21, 03:17                                                       
From : CYRUS                                                 1:330/201.1
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Subj : NY-TIMES Front page Article Slams Alt. Medicine - HR2019              
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Original Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 20:34:28 -0700


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          NY TIMES SLAMS ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE ON FRONT PAGE ARTICLE


------------------------------  COMMENTS -----------------------------------
 [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]

Also check out  http://thomas.loc.gov  for congressional records.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


[NYTIME ARTICLE June 18th 1996]
      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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