Two sentences from Medscape Editor-in-Chief George D. Lundberg, M.D.'s "My Turn" column on "The Best Health Care Goes Only So Far" in Newsweek 8/27/2001:
"As a nation, we may be overfunding the quest for unlikely cures while underfunding research on humbler therapies that could improve people's lives. For example, the field of alternative and complementary medicine receives just a .5 percent chunk of the National Institutes of Health budget." I wonder what "humbler" therapies Dr. Lundberg thinks could improve people's lives. I wonder what "alternative and complementary" methods he thinks are promising and should receive more funding. Does he not consider the "alternative and complementary" methods studied with NIH funding to be "unlikely" cures? I wonder why Lundberg referred to "alternative and complementary medicine" as a field rather than as euphemism. Bill London
