Complementary and Alternative Medicine

[Kyuuketsuki]

Healing Touch for cancer (thanks, NCCAM!)
By Steven Salzberg
I was looking at recent grants made by NCCAM, and found a project that just started last year: R15AT003591, “Use of Energy Biofield Therapy for the Treatment of Cancer and GVHD”, from the Univ. of Nevada-Reno, led by Alice Running in their nursing school, and co-directed by Lisbeth Welniak of UC Davis. It’s a 3-year award, and the first year was for $210,688, so I’m estimating the total cost at roughly $630,000. That's a nice chunk of change. But what the heck is "energy biofield therapy"?

Well, NCCAM supports a variety of pseudoscientific practices in the “energy therapy” category, including this study. Running and Welniak plan to look specifically at two methods, Reiki and “Healing Touch”, to see if they can (1) cure cancer and (2) reduce the likelihood of immune rejection (graft versus host disease, or GVHD) of transplated tissues or cells. Really? Remarkable.

First, a very quick look at the two “therapies” proposed by Running and Welniak. Healing Touch is another name for “Therapeutic Touch,” a technique that is little more than magical thinking, but that is very popular (unfortunately) among many nurses and nurse-training programs (including, obviously, the PI of this study, Alice Running). Basically, the claim is that a Healing Touch practitioner (let’s call this person a “healer”) can wave her hands over the patient, manipulate the patient’s “energy field” (an invisible field, undetectable by any known technology), and heal all sorts of illnesses, relieve pain, etc. During a session, the healer doesn’t even touch the patient.

Note: NCCAM stands for National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

[Read The Rest Of This Article]

So, in effect, 300 plus million US tax dollars are going to funding programs which are generally accepted within scientific circles not to work.

Thoughts?

Kyu

[bozo]

Healing Touch for cancer (thanks, NCCAM!)
By Steven Salzberg
I was looking at recent grants made by NCCAM, and found a project that just started last year: R15AT003591, “Use of Energy Biofield Therapy for the Treatment of Cancer and GVHD”, from the Univ. of Nevada-Reno, led by Alice Running in their nursing school, and co-directed by Lisbeth Welniak of UC Davis. It’s a 3-year award, and the first year was for $210,688, so I’m estimating the total cost at roughly $630,000. That's a nice chunk of change. But what the heck is "energy biofield therapy"?

Well, NCCAM supports a variety of pseudoscientific practices in the “energy therapy” category, including this study. Running and Welniak plan to look specifically at two methods, Reiki and “Healing Touch”, to see if they can (1) cure cancer and (2) reduce the likelihood of immune rejection (graft versus host disease, or GVHD) of transplated tissues or cells. Really? Remarkable.

First, a very quick look at the two “therapies” proposed by Running and Welniak. Healing Touch is another name for “Therapeutic Touch,” a technique that is little more than magical thinking, but that is very popular (unfortunately) among many nurses and nurse-training programs (including, obviously, the PI of this study, Alice Running). Basically, the claim is that a Healing Touch practitioner (let’s call this person a “healer”) can wave her hands over the patient, manipulate the patient’s “energy field” (an invisible field, undetectable by any known technology), and heal all sorts of illnesses, relieve pain, etc. During a session, the healer doesn’t even touch the patient.

Note: NCCAM stands for National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

[Read The Rest Of This Article]

So, in effect, 300 plus million US tax dollars are going to funding programs which are generally accepted within scientific circles not to work.

Thoughts?

Kyu

Why waste that money? Just start praying...or get a professional to pray for you!