As linked to by Chris, Higgins, and *everywhere*.

If you haven't read this already, you need to.

2.5 billion dollars spent (with no results) by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an organization that has a severe case of confirmation bias, not to mention conflict of interest (many of the board members are practitioners of the practices under review).

To sum up:

• Dismissing out-of-hand such things as anecdotal/alternative remedies or correlations such as immunizations/autism? Bad. (not to mention arrogant)
  
• Spending a bit of money to methodically investigate claims to weed out the false from the true, in hopes of increasing medical knowledge and treatment options? Good.
  
• Repeatedly running trials until you get the result you want, and dismissing overwhelming data that refutes your view? Insane and/or Criminal, take your pick.

Tags: news
Mood: determined