Time Columnist Pans NCCAM

NEW YORK--A columnist for Time is calling the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) an "embarrassing" operation replete with "mystics and quacks" who study the curative powers of bee pollen and other "fanciful 'remedies.'" In Wasting Big Bucks on Alternative Medicine, online columnist Leon Jaroff nicknames NCCAM "Harkin's Folly," named after Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) who helped found the center. Jaroff complains that the center "feasts" on an annual budget of $105 million even though it has published few studies.

In the article, Jaroff cites Saul Green, the author of a 1999 study on the Office of Alternative Medicine titled "The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine." Green reported that most of NIH's grants seem to be going to the same people time and again. Green also added those studies that have been published "are invariably statements to the effect that the results are interesting but further research is necessary because they didn't have enough money to do the research properly."

Green also stated that NCCAM has never published negative results. "This is scandalous," Jaroff wrote in response. However, it was only this past April that NCCAM, in fact, published a very negative study on the inefficacy of St. John's wort compared to placebo on major depression. And in December 2001, NCCAM reported that garlic may interfere with HIV medication.

Jaroff also questioned the methods used in these studies, citing "simple, straightforward and double-blind tests" could determine the efficacy of alternative medicine. "I have a great idea," Jaroff concluded. "Let's shut down the embarrassing operations of the NCCAM, thus saving millions of tax dollars."

"Another disservice to providers of these services and the people who purchase them," said David Seckman, executive director of the National Nutritional Foods Association, in regard to this article. "We've always supported additional funds for research, and even President Bush has asked for an increase in NCCAM funds to $118 million. I don't know where Jaroff's coming from."

The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) was in agreement. John Cardellina, vice president of botanical science and regulatory affairs at CRN, said this story mirrored a similar article on NCCAM that was published in the April issue of the Washington Monthly (www.washingtonmonthly.com). "I've read this in two different forms now, and I'm upset with both of them," he said, adding that NCCAM was created to look at the studies that were not given the time of day under the pre-NCCAM structure. That is not to say the center does not have faults. "The original reason NCCAM was formed was to provide an avenue to get credible, properly designed studies done on variuos CAM therapies. That is its mission. What bothers me [for example] is why did they waste $4.3 million of taxpayer money on a clinical study of St. John's wort against severe depression?"

Cardellina added that the assorted "quacks"--including acupuncturists and chiropractic doctors--on NCCAM's panel of advisees are necessary for designing the proper methodology for these studies. "If somebody was going to run a clinical trial on a new technique in podiatry, you're not going to ask a dentist to advise on how to design the study," he said.

For the entire Time story, visit www.time.com/time/columnist/jaroff/article/0,9565,237613,00.html.