Harold Varmus interviewed on C-span
May/11/09 07:59
Yesterday morning, I was listening to Harold Varmus being interviewed live (interspersed with listener calls) on C-SPAN Radio. For those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Varmus, he is currently the co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, former Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989. In other words, Dr. Varmus has all of the credentials of a scientists, if not one of the great scientists of our era.
I have been unable to find a transcript of the program, but a couple of points from the interview were particularly memorable to me. First, he made a full-throated support of vaccination of children, and made a diplomatic criticism of the anti-vaccination movement. The second point that stuck with me followed a call from an individual who had one of those “my friend was dying of this, and they went to this website and was cured of that” stories. In this case, the caller said a “friend” of hers was suffering from diabetes (not sure how bad or what type), and her friend went to some website (I was driving, so I didn’t have a chance to write it down) that told her to switch from a high carbohydrate diet to one with lots of proteins and fresh vegetables. Only this diet would “cure” the diabetes. Of course, my thought when I heard this story was, “well, switching to a low carb diet may have been the reason.”
Well, Dr. Varmus responded without discussing the claims, but went on to describe that the NIH supports research into complementary medicine through the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). He then made a statement that we have to investigate these alternative medicines through science, reminding listeners that digitalis, from foxglove plants, was used by herbalists before becoming part of the drug armamentarium for treating certain cardiovascular conditions. Unfortunately, he made a point, which I’m not sure I understood completely, that a lot of alternative medicines cannot be studied through traditional scientific means. He also gave some level of support for NCCAM.
I was very happy that he criticized the anti-vaccine crowd and stated that alternative medicine should be studied scientifically. I was very disappointed in his support for the wasteful NCCAM. I still think that NCCAM is an inappropriate waste of scientific research dollars. Digitalis became a drug because there was a scientific basis of how it worked, there was a clinical trial to determine its safety and efficacy, and it is not an “alternative medicine”. It is just medicine.
Most of what NCCAM studies has absolutely no basis in science. Many of the alternative medicines can’t even show a somewhat plausible reason for working, so it makes it difficult or even impossible to scientifically study it.
I just wish Dr. Vargus said, “I’m recommending to President Obama that we close down NCCAM immediately.” But he didn’t, and for such an intelligent, successful scientist, that is disappointing.
By Michael W Simpson
I have been unable to find a transcript of the program, but a couple of points from the interview were particularly memorable to me. First, he made a full-throated support of vaccination of children, and made a diplomatic criticism of the anti-vaccination movement. The second point that stuck with me followed a call from an individual who had one of those “my friend was dying of this, and they went to this website and was cured of that” stories. In this case, the caller said a “friend” of hers was suffering from diabetes (not sure how bad or what type), and her friend went to some website (I was driving, so I didn’t have a chance to write it down) that told her to switch from a high carbohydrate diet to one with lots of proteins and fresh vegetables. Only this diet would “cure” the diabetes. Of course, my thought when I heard this story was, “well, switching to a low carb diet may have been the reason.”
Well, Dr. Varmus responded without discussing the claims, but went on to describe that the NIH supports research into complementary medicine through the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). He then made a statement that we have to investigate these alternative medicines through science, reminding listeners that digitalis, from foxglove plants, was used by herbalists before becoming part of the drug armamentarium for treating certain cardiovascular conditions. Unfortunately, he made a point, which I’m not sure I understood completely, that a lot of alternative medicines cannot be studied through traditional scientific means. He also gave some level of support for NCCAM.
I was very happy that he criticized the anti-vaccine crowd and stated that alternative medicine should be studied scientifically. I was very disappointed in his support for the wasteful NCCAM. I still think that NCCAM is an inappropriate waste of scientific research dollars. Digitalis became a drug because there was a scientific basis of how it worked, there was a clinical trial to determine its safety and efficacy, and it is not an “alternative medicine”. It is just medicine.
Most of what NCCAM studies has absolutely no basis in science. Many of the alternative medicines can’t even show a somewhat plausible reason for working, so it makes it difficult or even impossible to scientifically study it.
I just wish Dr. Vargus said, “I’m recommending to President Obama that we close down NCCAM immediately.” But he didn’t, and for such an intelligent, successful scientist, that is disappointing.
By Michael W Simpson