Saturday, June 20, 2009

Alt med = crap? I'm so surprised,

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090610/ap_on_he_me/us_med_unproven_remedies_research

BETHESDA, Md. – Ten years ago the government set out to test herbal and other alternative health remedies to find the ones that work. After spending $2.5 billion, the disappointing answer seems to be that almost none of them do.

To paraphrase the great James Randi (randi.org), I could have told them that for $2.50. I mean, 2.5 BILLION dollars? They could have just given every person in the US $8 and told them to go to a movie or buy a good hamburger.

This reminds me of the SRI studies in the 1970s and 80s that spent $20 million to see if "remote viewing" was real (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRI_International#Clairvoyance_and_ESP). Guess what? It wasn't (http://www.skepdic.com/remotevw.html).

Maybe Obama's White House will cut some of this crap out, but given that he wants to play nice, I don't see that happening.

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