Quack science - Letter to the Editor

Congratulations on Chris Mooney's expose of the "alternative medicine" story, a set of events unprecedented in medicine, and the greatest challenge to science since 1910. For the first time in a century, political pressures and mystical beliefs reached a critical mass, driving unnecessary research and promoting ideologically-based medicine. We have more negative studies disproving the most popular alternative methods than for any standard method proven ineffective. The reason the movement persists, as Mr. Mooney and Dr. Novella point out, is that advocates will not relieve themselves of their beliefs, no matter how much negative research surrounds them. And the public gets deluded into following them.

Add to that the abuse of congressional power by senators and congressmen who also believe and are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on ill-conceived medical perpetual-motion machines.

The press, initially lulled into thinking collectively that some hidden cache of wonder lay beneath the claims, has finally recognized it has been conned. Finally, the courage to tell it like it really is has materialized.

WALLACE SAMPSON, M.D.
Editor, The Scientific Review of
Alternative Medicine

COPYRIGHT 2002 Washington Monthly Company
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group