Have you ever wondered how your mind can influence your body? How a sugar pill can make you feel better, even when you know it's not a real medicine? How a positive attitude can help you cope with pain, stress, and illness? If so, you are not alone. Many people are fascinated by the phenomenon…
That I’m not a fan of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH, formerly known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, or NCCAM) should come as no surprise to anyone. Basically, from its very inception as the Office of Alternative Medicine in the early 1990s to its growth to large center with a yearly budget of $120+ million, NCCIH has served one purpose: The promotion and attempted legitimization of quackery and magical thinking in medicine, the better to “integrate” pseudoscientific medicine with science-based medicine.
The holidays must truly be over. I say this because, starting around Sunday, the drumbeat of blogging topics that I haven't covered but that apparently you, my readers, want me to cover has accelerated. However, before I can move on to what might or might not be greener blogging pastures, material-wise, I feel obligated to finish what I started yesterday, namely the deconstruction of an advertising supplement promoting the "integration" of "traditional medicine" (in particular, traditional Chinese medicine, a.k.a.
Dr. Josephine Briggs needs your help! NCCAM needs a new name! scienceblogs.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scienceblogs.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.