Tuesday, September 21, 2004

SCAM researchers ask for taxpayers funds

The Medical Journal of Australia just published an article written by two researchers at SCAM universities that call on the Australian Government to devote $8 Million per year to study SCAM cures.

They claim that the lack of funds devoted to SCAM research has resulting in “too few good quality studies to support its use”. I would suggest that good quality studies exist, but they are unlikely to support most SCAM claims, as the good quality studies tend to show that the claimed benefit does not materialise. Real scientists don’t bother to research SCAM because most rely on energy forces that are known not to exist.

The article lauds how widespread SCAM has become in the Australian system with 50% of the population using SCAM and paying $2.3Billion in 2000 alone. Consultations are estimated as high as 1.9 Million and valued at $616 million.

With so much money being made on pills, potions and treatments within the SCAM industry, why should the taxpayer foot the bill? Why can’t the multi-billion dollar a year SCAM industry, fund their own research? Do we see the government paying the research costs of Pfizer?

When there are ample well-designed studies showing that energy forces do not control the health of your body, what rationale is there to spend millions of tax-payers dollars on treatments that claim to cure by manipulating this non-existent energy force?

If the SCAM industry wants to access government funds, then the results of the studies should be double blind, conducted by SCAM and non-SCAM scientists and designed with the assistance binding. If a study shows that acupuncture does not have any benefit significantly beyond the placebo effect, then the practice should be banned within Australia.

At least then the tax-payers money would not have been wasted.

1 Comments:

At Saturday, May 13, 2006 9:44:00 pm, Blogger Kevin Paine said...

I am open to the prospect of food being used to heal. There is ample evidenc that vitamin C can heal scurvy. Lack of certain foods can cause illness as can excess of certain foods.

If you have evidence from reliable sources confirming the "hundreds of thousands of deaths a year" from pharmaceutical medicines, I would be happy to view such information. Bear in mind that this must be from a reliable source, which immediately rules out most of the quack web-sites that are on the internet.

What I object to is the promotion of food as a health treatment, where there is no evidence to support that promotion. If evidence of effectiveness can be confirmed, preferably with multiple, independent, randomized, placebo controlled double blind clinical trials, then I am more than happy to support those claims. After all, if they could do trials like that for vitamin C and scurvy over 100 years ago, why can't they do the same for other foof claims?

 

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