Human Subjects as Political Pawns
When it comes to “alternative medicine” trials, it seems that the NIH is willing to experiment on people in ways that would be unthinkable for real biomedical research. The federal Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) has posted a preliminary determination letter, dated May 27, 2009, addressing some of the charges we had made against the politics-driven NIH Trial to Assess Chelation...
“Acupuncture Anesthesia”: a Proclamation from Chairman Mao (Part IV)
The Cultural Revolution After investigating ‘acupuncture anesthesia’ in the People’s Republic of China in 1973, John Bonica wrote: From the guarded comments made by several anesthesiologists, I concluded that this disuse [of ‘acupuncture anesthesia,’ after its introduction in 1958 until the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution began in 1966] was the result of disappointing failures in a significant proportion of patients. During the...
“Acupuncture Anesthesia”: a Proclamation from Chairman Mao (Part III)
A Digression: The Politics of Chinese Medicine in the People’s Republic of China (The Early Years) *** A Partial Book Review: Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945-63: a Medicine of Revolution, by Kim Taylor Mao’s was a complex personality. He was by nature a control freak, highly secretive, quickly suspicious, ruthless in revenge. These were all personal characteristics that were to...
“Acupuncture Anesthesia”: A Proclamation from Chairman Mao (Part II)
An Anesthesiologist’s Perspective The late John Bonica (1917-1994), one of the great anesthesiologists of the 20th century, has been called “The Founding Father of the Pain Field.” He developed this interest while treating wounded soldiers at Fort Lewis, Washington, during WW II. Shortly thereafter he became a pioneer of epidural analgesia and other forms of safe pain relief for labor and delivery....
“Acupuncture Anesthesia”: A Proclamation from Chairman Mao (Part I)
James Reston’s Appendectomy For many Americans, the current wave of public fascination with “complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)” can be traced to a single event: New York Times columnist James Reston’s appendectomy in China during the summer of 1971, which Reston reported in an interesting and amusing article on July 26 of that year. Many of those who noticed the publicity following this event...
Harvard Medical School: Veritas for Sale (Part VI)
Loose Ends: Dr. Koh and More After Dr. Federman’s letter and my reply, posted in Part V of this series,† there seemed little point in pursuing the matter further. Although Dr. Federman never answered my reply, he did send, at my request, a copy of Commissioner of Public Health Howard Koh‘s written “construction of the events in the Massachusetts Special Commission.” As you may recall, those events...
Harvard Medical School: Veritas for Sale (Part V)
September 26, 2002 Kimball Atwood, M.D. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Dear Kim, I have now had time to look into the allegations in your letter of June 14th which, incidentally, I shared with Dr. David Eisenberg and he with several others. I have sought consultation about our exchanges and the gist of my response follows. Some of your concerns and allegations are very helpful and...
The Dull-Man Law
Kimball Atwood is obviously trying to throw mud at Harvard and at homeopathy, but when you throw mud, you get dirty… (Sigh) So little time, so much misinformation. Hence the Dull-Man Law: In any discussion involving science or medicine, being Dana Ullman loses you the argument immediately…and gets you laughed out of the room. This will be the last time that I...
Harvard Medical School: Veritas for Sale (Part IV)
HMS Puts the Messenger in its Crosshairs When, during the fall and winter of 2001-02 I first approached Dean Daniel Federman of the Harvard Medical School (HMS) with evidence that the HMS “CAM” program was promoting pseudomedicine, I gave him some materials that I thought would be adequate to make the case: ‘CAM’ Director David Eisenberg’s dubious funding sources and his failure to...
Harvard Medical School: Veritas for Sale (Part III)
In Parts I and II of this series* we saw that from 2000 to 2002, key members of the Harvard Medical School “CAM” program, including the Director, had promoted quackery to the legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We also saw other explicit or tacit promotions by Harvard institutions and professors, and embarrassing examples of such promotions on InteliHealth, a consumer health...