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From: Tebay, Wendy M on Tue, Jul 22, 1997 5:36 PM Subject: Sharp Criticism of NIH Alternative Medicine Office To: PD Listserv Postings To abolish the OAM would be ignorant, in my humble opinion. It's purpose is to give scientific validity to what some believe to be hocus-pocus medicine (some is, some isn't - that's the whole point - to weed out the bogus stuff and find the useful). Even many prestigious medical schools are incorporating coursework in alternative medicine into their curriculea. I think the AMA did a study not long ago which concluded that a very large percentage of Americans use alternative medicine, and a large part of them do so without telling their primary physician. I believe that one is ignorant to condemn that which one knows little or nothing of, so I intend to keep my neuro totally informed of everything I do for treating my pd. Then he has no excuse. Only then, when he is as familiar with these therapies as I am, will I accept his opinions completely. Otherwise, I'll gladly listen to them, but I will take them with a critical mind, just as I do when I read the info that is pro-alternative medicine. I don't accept or reject anything uncategorically. For example, I personally wouldn't even think of giving my expert opinion on the design of jet fighters, when I happen to design satellites. Although I know the basics of engineering, and thus could learn how to design the other, it would be ignorant for me to say I knew whether or not a proposed fighter design made any sense. If I were a doctor, I would be excited about the opportunity to increase my knowledge and learn all that I could about ALL aspects of medicine. I would be thrilled to learn more, both to help my patients better, and because I love to learn. The more knowledge one has of something, the better able they are to make a sensible judgement on it. I also think the fact that patients hide what they are doing from their MD's only propagates the situation. If Dr's really knew ALL of the therapies their patients were undergoing, it'd be alot easier for them to see trends that might reveal which alternative therapies were useful for a given condition and which ones might be dangerous or useless. Anyway, I think all of us should research everything we can on pd, and keep our Dr's informed of what we learn and what we try. They are busy and there is an overhwelming amount of info out there, so we've got to do our part in "educating" them, so to speak. Maybe that way we can see better where the research dollars should go, over the entire range of possible therapies. Wendy Tebay