Tom Harkin's wants to waste money on healthcare
Tom Harkin, Democratic Senator from Iowa, and one of the leading supporters of quack medicine is at it again. As the US Senator who forced the junk science NCCAM onto the National Institutes of Health and has drained precious scientific research dollars, he is now putting his pseudoscientific ideas into health care reform. As a member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP), he is trying to be sneaky, because he has the power to do so. He has been instrumental in attaching some amendments to the Affordable Health Choices Act (the formal name for the bill in Congress to reform healthcare policy), including:
I have no issue with the first two, especially since the cost of medical education is so large that some deferment is appropriate. I might add that other health care students (pharmacy, nursing, and other technical specialties in medicine) should receive a similar consideration.
The pain management section and inclusion of alternative medicine workers into the definition of a healthcare worker are troubling. Pain management is rife with pseudoscientific claims within the alternative medicine industry, most of which have no basis in science. It is important that pain management research be funded, but it should be in a scientific and clinically responsible manner. That means, keep it out of NCCAM.
Defining alternative medicine workers as “healthcare workers” is an insult to the high level of education, experience, and overall knowledge of real healthcare workers, those who actually use scientific principles to treat your disease. Naturopathy is quackery, so they cannot be healthcare workers. Homeopathy is quackery, so they shouldn’t be healthcare workers. Chiropractic, when it moves beyond treating simple back pain (and the information is a bit debatable), is absolutely quackery. Acupuncture just doesn’t work.
Healthcare is an expensive proposition. Paying for it is going to be difficult. Wasting money on alternative medicine, which has not proven to do anything, makes no sense, when we have huge issues in paying for healthcare in the US. We need to focus on paying for evidence based healthcare, not on ideas which are not only unproven, but may be dangerous.
By Michael W Simpson
- A provision to allow medical students to defer loan repayment until they finish their residencies
- Limits on the types of expenses medical students cover with loan funds
- An provision to promote and fund research on pain management
- Inclusion of alternative medicine workers in the bill's definition of "healthcare workforce"
I have no issue with the first two, especially since the cost of medical education is so large that some deferment is appropriate. I might add that other health care students (pharmacy, nursing, and other technical specialties in medicine) should receive a similar consideration.
The pain management section and inclusion of alternative medicine workers into the definition of a healthcare worker are troubling. Pain management is rife with pseudoscientific claims within the alternative medicine industry, most of which have no basis in science. It is important that pain management research be funded, but it should be in a scientific and clinically responsible manner. That means, keep it out of NCCAM.
Defining alternative medicine workers as “healthcare workers” is an insult to the high level of education, experience, and overall knowledge of real healthcare workers, those who actually use scientific principles to treat your disease. Naturopathy is quackery, so they cannot be healthcare workers. Homeopathy is quackery, so they shouldn’t be healthcare workers. Chiropractic, when it moves beyond treating simple back pain (and the information is a bit debatable), is absolutely quackery. Acupuncture just doesn’t work.
Healthcare is an expensive proposition. Paying for it is going to be difficult. Wasting money on alternative medicine, which has not proven to do anything, makes no sense, when we have huge issues in paying for healthcare in the US. We need to focus on paying for evidence based healthcare, not on ideas which are not only unproven, but may be dangerous.
By Michael W Simpson