Alternative Medicine

Your article on the Office of Alternative Medicine (P. Smaglik, The Scientist, Nov. 10, 1997, page 7) quotes Robert Park as saying that it is difficult to set up a double-blind study of acupuncture. Actually, it is rather easy--it was done in the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, when I was a faculty member there. One of the residents was Asian, and his mother was an acupuncturist. For his research project he undertook to determine the efficacy of

Written byDon Jewett

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I have published papers debunking "Applied Kinesiology" (Journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society, 15:19-29, 1986) and "Clinical Ecology" (New England Journal of Medicine, 323:429-33, 1990), and have spent long hours (to no avail) trying to negotiate a double-blind study of homeopathy. In my experience, the advocates will always find some "reason" why a double-blind study can't be done, because it is such a definitive test. And if the study is done, they will find an excuse for the failure and continue to practice, unchanged by clear evidence against their beliefs.

The real test for the Office of Alternative Medicine will be whether the director, Wayne Jonas, produces a definitive double-blind study of homeopathy. I doubt that he will, since every medical practitioner requires faith in his methods in order to be confident--that is, a physician can question only another doctor's practice, not his or her own.

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