Thanks to Spiny Norman, I read this little item. Tom Harkin is upset: the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has been uncovering too much quackery. Established by the good senator (among others), with the intention that it would look into woo and crazy sh*t and find it wasn't woo and crazy sh*t, they've been going all sciencey and debunky. Water doesn't have memory? Magnets don't cure headaches? What good is legitimate research if it leads to conclusions like that?
As a proud liberal, I must say this is one aspect of (some of) my brethren and cistern that embarrasses me: credulity in the face of crazy. "Alternative Medicine" is an oxymoron: if it can be proven to work, it's called "Medicine." "Alternative" and "Complementary" in the context of medicine, mean "Discredited" and "Bullsh*t." As much as I am troubled by wingnuts who reject the science of evolution, age of the earth, and climate change (not to mention continuing to insist on trickle-down economics), I am no less appalled by Senator Harkin in his love of CAM, and Robert Kennedy, Jr, in his riding of the antivaccination bandwagon. As much as I like reading The Huffington Post I find a little too much credence given there to unproved or disproved medical woo.
It seems to be a liberal lacuna.
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