National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
Abbreviation NCCIH (formerly NCCAM)
Formation 1991 (as Office of Alternative Medicine)
1998 (as NCCAM)
Type U.S. government agency
Headquarters Bethesda, Maryland
Official language
English
Director
Josephine P. Briggs, MD
Parent organization
National Institutes of Health
Affiliations United States Public Health Service
Website nccih.nih.gov

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)[1] — formerly the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), and before that the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) — is a United States government agency which investigates complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). NCCIH is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the Department of Health and Human Services of the federal government of the United States. The NIH is one of eight agencies under the Public Health Service (PHS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Organization and history

Name and mission statement

NCCIH was established in October 1991, as the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM), which was re-established as NCCAM in October 1998[2] and again as NCCIH in December 2014.[1] The name change to NCCIH has been discussed as an attempt by the center to mitigate criticism, such as to avoid the term "alternative" and to distance itself from having funded studies of questionable merit.[3][4]

NCCAM's mission statement declared that it is "dedicated to exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science; training complementary and alternative medicine researchers; and disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals."[5] As NCCIH, the mission statement is "to define, through rigorous scientific investigation, the usefulness and safety of complementary and alternative medicine interventions and their roles in improving health and health care."[6]

As the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM)

Joseph M. Jacobs was appointed the first director of the OAM in 1992. Initially, Jacobs' insistence on rigorous scientific methodology caused friction with the office's patrons, such as U.S. Senator Tom Harkin. Sen. Harkin, who had become convinced his allergies were cured by taking bee pollen pills, criticized the "unbendable rules of randomized clinical trials," saying "It is not necessary for the scientific community to understand the process before the American public can benefit from these therapies."[7] Harkin's office reportedly pressured the OAM to fund studies of specific "pet theories," including bee pollen and antineoplastons. In the face of increasing resistance to the use of scientific methodology in the study of alternative medicine, one of the OAM board members, Barrie Cassileth, publicly criticized the office, saying: "The degree to which nonsense has trickled down to every aspect of this office is astonishing ... It's the only place where opinions are counted as equal to data."[7] Finally, in 1994, Harkin appeared on television with cancer patients who blamed Jacobs for blocking their access to antineoplastons, leading Jacobs to resign from the OAM in frustration.[7] In an interview with Science, Jacobs "blasted politicians - especially Senator Tom Harkin... for pressuring his office, promoting certain therapies, and, he says, attempting an end run around objective science."[8]

With the OAM's increasing budget in the 1990s, the office drew increasing criticism for its perceived lack of rigorous scientific study of alternative approaches in favor of uncritical boosterism. Paul Berg, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, wrote to the Senate that "Quackery will always prey on the gullible and uninformed, but we should not provide it with cover from the NIH," and called the office "an embarrassment to serious scientists."[9][10]:175 Allen Bromley, then-president of the American Physical Society, similarly wrote to Congress that the OAM had "emerged as an undiscriminating advocate of unconventional medicine. It has bestowed the considerable prestige of the NIH on a variety of highly dubious practices, some of which clearly violate basic laws of physics and more clearly resemble witchcraft."[7][9][10]:175 One opinion writer in the New York Times described the OAM as "Tom Harkin's folly".[11]

In 1995, Wayne Jonas, a promoter of homeopathy and political ally of Senator Harkin, became the director of the OAM, and continued in that role until 1999.[12] In 1997, the NCCAM budget was increased from $12 million to $20 million annually.[9] From 1990 to 1997, use of alternative medicine in the US increased by 25%, with a corresponding 50% increase in expenditures.[13] The OAM drew increasing criticism from eminent members of the scientific community with letters to the Senate Appropriations Committee when discussion of renewal of funding OAM came up.[10]:175 In 1998, the President of the North Carolina Medical Association publicly called for shutting down the OAM.[14]

In 1998, NIH director and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus came into conflict with Senator Harkin by pushing to have more NIH control of alternative medicine research.[15] The NIH Director placed the OAM under more strict scientific NIH control.[9][15] Senator Harkin responded by elevating OAM into an independent NIH "center", just short of being its own "institute", and renamed to be the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). NCCAM had a mandate to promote a more rigorous and scientific approach to the study of alternative medicine, research training and career development, outreach, and "integration". In 1999, the NCCAM budget was increased from $20 million to $50 million.[14][15] The United States Congress approved the appropriations without dissent. In 2000, the budget was increased to about $68 million, in 2001 to $90 million, in 2002 to $104 million, and in 2003, to $113 million.[14]

As NCCAM

In 2009, after 17 years of government testing at a cost of $2.5 billion, almost no clearly proven efficacy of alternative therapies had been found.[16] Senator Harkin complained, "One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short. I think quite frankly that in this center and in the office previously before it, most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving."[15][17][18] Members of the scientific community criticized this comment as showing Senator Harkin did not understand the basics of scientific inquiry, which tests hypotheses, but never intentionally attempts to "validate approaches".[15] In 2009, the NCCAM's yearly budget was increased to about $122 million.[15] Overall NIH funding for CAM research increased to $300 million by 2009.[15] By 2009, Americans were spending $34 billion annually on CAM.[19]

In 2012, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a criticism that study after study had been funded by NCCAM, but "failed to prove that complementary or alternative therapies are anything more than placebos".[20] The JAMA criticism pointed to large wasting of research money on testing scientifically implausible treatments, citing "NCCAM officials spending $374,000 to find that inhaling lemon and lavender scents does not promote wound healing; $750,000 to find that prayer does not cure AIDS or hasten recovery from breast-reconstruction surgery; $390,000 to find that ancient Indian remedies do not control type 2 diabetes; $700,000 to find that magnets do not treat arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or migraine headaches; and $406,000 to find that coffee enemas do not cure pancreatic cancer."[20] It was pointed out that negative results from testing were generally ignored by the public, that people continue to "believe what they want to believe, arguing that it does not matter what the data show: They know what works for them".[20] Continued increasing use of CAM products was also blamed on the lack of FDA ability to regulate alternative products, where negative studies do not result in FDA warnings or FDA-mandated changes on labeling, whereby few consumers are aware that many claims of many supplements were found not to have not to be supported.[20]

In 2014 the NCCAM was renamed to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) with a new charter requiring that 12 of the 18 council members shall be selected with a preference to selecting leading representatives of complementary and alternative medicine, 9 of the members must be licensed practitioners of alternative medicine, 6 members must be general public leaders in the fields of public policy, law, health policy, economics, and management, and 3 members must represent the interests of individual consumers of complementary and alternative medicine.[21]

Focus

NCCIH funds research into complementary and alternative medicine, including support for clinical trials of CAM techniques. The four primary areas of focus are research, research training and career development, outreach, and integration.[22] NCCIH divides complementary and alternative medicine into five forms:[23]

Operations

The NCCIH charter states that "Of the 18 appointed members (of the council) 12 shall be selected from among the leading representatives of the health and scientific disciplines (including not less than 2 individuals who are leaders in the fields of public health and the behavioral or social sciences) relevant to the activities of NCCIH, particularly 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. Six of the members shall be appointed by the Secretary from the general public and shall include leaders in the fields of public policy, law, health policy, economics, and management. Three of the six shall represent the interests of individual consumers of complementary and alternative medicine."[25]

The NCCIH budget for 2005 was $123 million. For fiscal year 2009 (ending September 30, 2009), it was $122 million.[26]

Research in alternative medicine is done elsewhere at NIH, notably in the National Cancer Institute. The NIH's Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine had the same budget as NCCIH, $122 million, for fiscal year 2009. Other parts of NIH had an additional $50 million for FY 2009; NIH's total budget was about $29 billion.[26]

The NCCIH budget for 2011 was $127.7 million.[27] They requested a $3,399,000 funding increase for their 2012 budget.[28]

Criticism

NCCIH has been criticized by Steven E. Nissen, Stephen Barrett, and Kimball Atwood among others, for funding, along with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute[29] a study of EDTA chelation therapy for coronary artery disease, which lasted about 10 years and cost about $31 million, even though smaller, controlled trials found chelation ineffective.[30][31][32] Other NCCIH-funded studies have included the benefits of distant prayer for AIDS, the effects of lemon and lavender essential oils on wound healing,[33][34] "energy chelation", and "rats stressed out by white noise".[35]

In 2006, NCCIH was criticized in Science with the comment "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."[36] The authors suggested that, while it was appropriate to study alternative therapies, the quality of its research was lower than other NIH institutes, and that these studies could be performed under the auspices of other institutes within the NIH. As an example, they authors described 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. Severe adverse effects were associated with the Gonzalez regimen, and no evidence in peer-reviewed journals supported the plausibility or efficacy of the regimen or chelation therapy.[36]

A 2012 study published in the Skeptical Inquirer examined the grants and awards funded by NCCIH from 2000 to 2011, which totaled $1.3 billion. The study found no discoveries in complementary and alternative medicine that would justify the existence of this center. The authors argued that, after 20 years and an expenditure of $2 billion, the failure of NCCIH was evidenced by the lack of publications and the failure to report clinical trials in peer-reviewed medical journals. They recommended that NCCIH be defunded or abolished, and the concept of funding alternative medicine be discontinued.[37]

In his 2013 book Do You Believe in Magic?, Paul A. Offit — Professor of Vaccinology and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania — took NCCIH to task for constituting a waste of public funds.

Since its birth, in 1999, NCCAM officials have spent about $1.6 billion studying alternative therapies. They've spent $374,000 of taxpayer money to find out that inhaling lemon and lavender scents doesn't promote wound healing; $390,000 to find out that ancient Indian remedies don't control Type 2 diabetes; $446,000 to find that magnetic mattresses don't treat arthritis; $283,000 to discover that magnets don't treat migraine headaches; $406,000 to determine that coffee enemas don't cure pancreatic cancer; and $1.8 million to find out that prayer doesn't cure AIDS or brain tumors or improve healing after breast reconstruction surgery. Fortunately, NCCAM has recently abandoned these kinds of studies, choosing instead to focus on studies of dietary supplements and pain relief.[38]

References

  1. 1 2 NIH complementary and integrative health agency gets new name, NIH, December 17, 2014
  2. "National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health - Organization - The NIH Almanac - National Institutes of Health (NIH)". Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  3. Allen S (19 February 2015). "Will a name change make NIH research center less controversial?". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  4. Reardon S (16 May 2014). "NIH alternative-medicine centre proposes name change". Nature News Blog. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  5. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2001). "Expanding Horizons of Healthcare: Five-Year Strategic Plan 2001-2005" (PDF). nccih.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  6. "Introduction: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health". NCCIH. Retrieved 2016-08-29.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Dan Hurley (2006). Natural causes: death, lies, and politics in America's vitamin and herbal supplement industry. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-2042-1.
  8. Marshall, Eliot (1994). "The Politics of Alternative Medicine". Science. 265 (5181): 2000–2002. doi:10.1126/science.8091220. PMID 8091220.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Office Of Alternative Medicine Gets Unexpected Boost, Paul Smaglik, The Scientist, 11-10-1997,
  10. 1 2 3 Quack Medicine: A History of Combating Health Fraud in Twentieth-Century America, Eric W. Boyle,
  11. Jaroff, Leon (October 6, 1997). "Bee Pollen Bureaucracy". New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2009.
  12. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), Skeptics Dictionary,
  13. Eisenberg, D.M.; et al. (1998). "Trends in alternative medicine use in the United States, 1990-1997: Results of a follow-up national survey". JAMA. 280 (18): 1569–75. doi:10.1001/jama.280.18.1569. PMID 9820257.
  14. 1 2 3 Why the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) Should Be Defunded, Wallace I. Sampson, M.D, Quackwatch,
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Scientists Speak Out Against Federal Funds for Research on Alternative Medicine, David Brown, Washington Post, 3-17-2009,
  16. "$2.5 billion spent, no alternative cures found". Alternative Medicine. NBCNews.com. Associated Press. 2009-06-10. Archived from the original on 2009-06-13.
  17. Full Committee Hearing, Integrative Care: A Pathway to a Healthier Nation, SD 4-30 (Feb. 26, 2009), United States Senate,
  18. Tom Harkin’s War on Science, Peter Lipson, Discover Magazine editor's opinion in New York Times, 3-2-2009,
  19. $34 billion spent yearly on alternative medicine, NBC News, 7-30-2009
  20. 1 2 3 4 Is taxpayer money well spent or wasted on alternative-medicine research?, Susan Perry, 5-8-2012, MinnPost,
  21. NACCIH Charter
  22. Sharon K. Zoumbaris (2012). Encyclopedia of Wellness: From Acai Berry to Yo-yo Dieting. ABC-CLIO. p. 591. ISBN 978-0-313-39333-4.
  23. "What is CAM?". NCCIH. February 2007. Retrieved April 18, 2009.
  24. "Study Finds Shark Cartilage Extract Does Not Improve Lung Cancer Survival". NCCIH. February 2007. Retrieved April 18, 2009. A joint study funded by NCCIH and the NCI (National Cancer Institute) found shark cartilage to be an ineffective treatment for cancer and do not endorse its use.
  25. "NACCIH Charter". NCCIH. Retrieved July 1, 2015.
  26. 1 2 David Brown (March 17, 2009). "Critics Object to 'Pseudoscience' Center". Washington Post.
  27. "NCCAM Funding: Appropriations History". NIH. September 12, 2011. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
  28. "Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Request". NIH. September 12, 2011. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
  29. NHLBI Questions and Answers: The NIH Trial of EDTA Chelation Therapy for Coronary Heart Disease Page accessed March 19, 2015
  30. Roni Caryn Robin for the New York Times Wellness Blog. April 15, 2013 of Chelation Therapy Shows Benefits, but Doubts Persist
  31. Stephen Barrett for Chelationwatch. November 16, 2012 Why the NIH Study of Chelation Therapy Should Have Been Stopped
  32. Kimball C. Atwood, KC et al. Why the NIH Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy (TACT) Should Be Abandoned. Medscape J Med. 2008; 10(5): 115. PMID 18596934 PMC 2438277
  33. Offit PA (May 2012). "Studying complementary and alternative therapies". JAMA. 307 (17): 1803–4. doi:10.1001/jama.2012.518. PMID 22550193.
  34. Tsouderos, Trine (December 11, 2011). "Federal center pays good money for suspect medicine". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved February 6, 2012.
  35. Tsouderos, Trine (December 11, 2011). "Energy healing sparks debate". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
  36. 1 2 Marcus, D. M.; Grollman, AP (2006). "Science and Government: Enhanced: Review for NCCAM is Overdue". Science. 313 (5785): 301–2. doi:10.1126/science.1126978. PMID 16857923.
  37. Mielczarek, E., Engler, B. 2012. Measuring Mythology: Startling Concepts in NCCAM Grants. Skeptical Inquirer 36(1)(January/February):35-43, 2012.
  38. Offit, Paul A. (2013), Do You Believe in Magic? The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine; New York: Harper Collins, pg 97.
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