National Center For Complementary and Alternative Medicine - Criticism

Criticism

Critics allege that despite the publicized intentions at its founding, NCCAM and its predecessor, the Office of Alternative Medicine, have spent more than $800 million on such research since 1991 but have neither succeeded in demonstrating the efficacy of a single alternative method, nor declared any alternative medicine treatment ineffective. "The NCCAM continues to fund and promote pseudoscience. Political pressures and the Center's charter would seem to make this inevitable," said Kimball C. Atwood IV, M.D.

A policy forum in Science stated,

We believe that NCCAM funds proposals of dubious merit; its research agenda is shaped more by politics than by science; and it is structured by its charter in a manner that precludes an independent review of its performance. In view of the popularity of alternative therapies, it is appropriate to evaluate the efficacy and safety of selected treatments.

but research falls below the standards of other NIH institutes. NCCAM budget for 2005 was $123.1 million. The charter said that 12 of the 18 members of the NCCAM Advisory Council "shall be selected from among the leading representatives of the health and scientific disciplines in the area of complementary and alternative medicine. Nine of the members shall be practitioners licensed in one or more of the major systems with which the Center is involved". Clinical trials of St. John's wort, echinacea, and saw palmetto have been published; none was more effective than placebo, but manufacturers said the studies were flawed, and these studies are unlikely to change practices. NCCAM is funding a study of EDTA chelation therapy for coronary artery disease with 2,300 patients, even though smaller controlled trials have found chelation ineffective. NCCAM is also funding a trial of gemcitabine with the Gonzalez regimen for stage II to IV pancreatic cancer, in the belief that cancer is caused by a deficiency of pancreatic proteolytic enzymes that would normally eliminate toxins; severe adverse effects are associated with the Gonzalez regimen. No evidence in peer-reviewed journals supports the plausibility or efficacy of chelation therapy or the Gonzalez protocol and a test of the protocol reported in 2009 found patients receiving the treatment had worse quality of life and died faster than conventionally treated counterparts.

NCCAM has been criticized for funding studies like the benefits of distant prayer for AIDS, and the effects of lemon and lavender scents on wound healing. Dr. David Gorski, a breast cancer researcher at Wayne State University, states "Lots of good science and good scientists are going unfunded. How can we justify wasting money on something like this when there are so many other things that are much more plausible and much more likely to result in real benefit?" Other studies funded by NCCAM have included "rats stressed out by white noise" and "energy chelation." The latter study has been criticized by Gorski as "brain-meltingly bad", and writes that the study "from a scientific standpoint, is laughable."

Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, published a criticism of NCCAM funding in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Offit refers to NCCAM funding as "money wasted" and states "There's no reason to believe that magnets would make your migraine headache better. Or that prayer would treat AIDS." "Because negative studies do not appear to change behavior and because studies performed without a sound biological basis have little to no chance of success, it would make sense for NCCAM to either refrain from funding studies of therapies that border on mysticism such as distance healing, purgings, and prayer; redefine its mission to include a better understanding of the physiology of the placebo response; or shift its resources to other NIH institutes."

Mielczarek and Engler examined the grants and awards funded by NCCAM from 2000 to 2011, which cost a total of $1.3 billion. Their study showed no discoveries in complementary and alternative medicine that would justify the existence of this center. They argued that, after 20 years and an expenditure of $20 billion, the failure of NCCAM is evidenced by the lack of publications and the failure to report clinical trials in peer-reviewed scientific medical journals. They recommended NCCAM be defunded or abolished, and the concepts of funding alternative medicine be discontinued.