In recent years, York University in Toronto and Florida State University have had to fight off efforts to establish chiropractic programs in their medical schools. (Here’s an excellent review of these failed efforts, especially the Jeb Bush-approved effort at FSU.)
At Mr UD‘s university, the University of Maryland, no such campaign has occurred, but something more insidious is happening, about which Steven Salzburg, a computer science professor there, has written in Forbes. Salzburg’s attacks on creeping anti-intellectualism at UMD are indispensable elements of the permanent watch professors everywhere must keep over the university’s integrity. You can’t count on presidents and trustees to keep watch. These particular proposed programs, for example, always come with huge gifts from in-search-of-legitimacy chiropractors, and administrators tend not to be able to see past the money. Only professors have the combination of empiricism and disinterestedness – and tenure – that can hold back the pseuds.
So Salzburg’s going after his reputable university’s housing of disreputable ideas and methods in its Integrative Medicine center, which features, among other absurdities, homeopathic approaches:
[H]omeopathic treatments are just water. Or rather, water dropped onto a sugar pill, and sold at stores such as Whole Foods, which has a section devoted to homeopathic remedies.
(A spectacular new Whole Foods just opened up down the street from UD‘s house, and she and Mr UD have joined the appreciative ‘thesdan crowds there. UD always avoids what she calls the Medieval Aisle. Too depressing.)
Salzburg concludes:
By providing a respectable home for these pseudoscientific practices, UM Medicine is undermining its own scientific and educational missions. But when the money is coming in, the administration seems quite happy to support it.
April 23rd, 2011 at 10:06AM
Homeopathy, Reiki, and Qi Gong are obvious nonsense; is chiropractic really in the same category?
April 23rd, 2011 at 10:18AM
No, because there’s probably a tiny marginal improvement in some people subject to it.
April 23rd, 2011 at 11:34AM
Because of the placebo effect, there’s a tiny marginal improvement in some people subject to almost everything. That’s one of the problems with both cost and quality in many health systems–we keep comparing both existing and new treatments to a baseline of no improvement or placebo. It’s time to focus on comparative effectiveness and compare approaches to each other.
I support efforts to integrate some of this into academia in two ways. First, to the extent it can be shown to be effective, it should be included Second, it should be included to the extent that those practicing effective treatments need to understand the approaches that individuals may choose on their own, the impact it might have on their efforts, and how to counsel individuals about these other approaches to help them pick the most effective way to achieve their desired health.
April 23rd, 2011 at 11:47AM
When my father attended Hahnemann Medical College (named for the father of homeopathy) in Philadelphia in the late 1930s/early 1940s, he was taught homeopathic medicine alongside conventional allopathic medicine. While he thought it was dubious at best, and certainly didn’t have much use for it in his career in epidemiology, he spoke of it as an amusing diversion, much like one might read a Harry Potter novel. He didn’t have time for chiropractors, though, and considered them to be quacks.
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:03PM
David,
That’s not exactly correct. Tai Chi (a complex form of Qi Gong) has been shown to be beneficial for high blood pressure and some other medical conditions.
Qi Gong comes in many forms, and some extreme claims are occasionally made for it that aren’t realistically achievable by the average or even above-average practioner. However there are beneficial effects in the systems I’m familiar with that can be explained by anyone with a background in physiology.