Your Tax Dollars At Work
After ten years and 2.5 billion dollars, an initiative by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to test the effectiveness of alternative treatments has come up empty handed:
In an interview last year, shortly after becoming the federal center’s new director, Dr. Josephine Briggs said it had a strong research record, and praised the many “big name” scientists who had sought its grants. She conceded there were no big wins from its first decade, other than a study that found acupuncture helped knee arthritis. That finding was called into question when a later, larger study found that sham treatment worked just as well.
But don’t worry, the government isn’t giving up. Rest assured that your tax dollars (your great grandchildren’s tax dollars, actually) will continue to fund research into the effectiveness of magnets, acupressure, distance healing, and various undetectable energy fields.
