In the opinion of Dr. Wallace Sampson, an ACSH scientific advisor, we have reached a point of marginal returns with respect to studying the effects of alternative medicine remedies:
Noting that the NIH has spent nearly $1.5 billion since 1999 supporting research into alternative medicine methods, with "no evidence of efficacy and little evidence of inefficacy," he states that NCCAM "must consider halting its search for active remedies through clinical trials of treatments of low plausibility."
Perhaps, as Dr. Sampson has suggested, we might gain more by studying the "psychology of personal beliefs in irrational proposals [and] in the study of erroneous thinking" than by continued testing of products that seem to benefit their producers more than their consumers. Dr. Gilbert Ross, ACSH medical director adds, "There is no such thing as 'alternative' medicine. Medical science deals with effective and safe treatments, based on objective evidence. The 'alternative' is not medicine, but superstition or faith."
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