How about this: You wrote, “(never mind the original nutty suggestion of statins for kids)”

I won’t ask you to compare the evidence-base for pediatric statin use with, say, TM or other regular medititation for hypertension, but do I understand rightly that this is a context in mainstream medicine in which you also feel the science isn’t there to back up the guidlines? That’s where this thread began.

Your thoughts apppreciated. Thanks

If you want the evidence, it isn’t really hard to find. Look at the Cochrane reviews on the web. You will find only the slimmest of evidence for any sort of CAM and essentially none for the lunatic fringe like homeopathy.

Alternatively, read either of two excellent and honest books from people who have spent a long time assessing the evidence.

Trick or Treatment by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, Bantam Press, 2008

Snake Oil Science, The Truth about Complementary and Alternative Medicine. R. Barker Bausell, Oxford University Press, 2007

I actually wrote no such thing. I was referring to a year I spent as a faculty associate at our own med school. What “most univeristy CAM courses use” is of concern to DC, but not a topic I commented upon (or could).

The fact that he needed to change the meaning of a simple sentence for the sake of his crusade probably already tells us something about his personal championing of “evidence” and “objectivity.” No evidence of either in his respose to me.

Maybe the best CAM to be recommended at this point is a long, slow look in the mirror.

For Atlex, I appreciate your note. I am no CAM-champion in general, as my original post makes clear enough. As I said, many of the problems “tip of the iceberg.” I was responding to Nathan’s (and now DC’s) monolithic denials, both of which seemed to me (for different reasons) not dealing with some of what _is_ there (to whatever degree).

If this discussion (never mind the original nutty suggestion of statins for kids) is representative of the intellectual level of American Pediatrics, it makes me glad to live in Europe.

Yes, there are many RCTs of CAM; however, they are confined to a vrery limited number of conditions, diseases, and maladies. However, many, if not most, of the “claims” associated with these treatments have no RCTs to back them up. That doesn’t mean they don’t work, but it doesn’t mean they do work either.

Atlex

I don’t have the time (or, frankly, the inclination) to list some of the most interesting double-blinded RCTs of CAM therapies. But if you tell me they don’t exist…well, give my best to all the folks in Andromeda.

Kirk out.

They work well in individuals with these diseases but why would you take something preventatively that may or may not help something you may or may not get down the road but definitely will give you significant side effects. TO CHILDREN.

I don’t know if you have ever looked around but there is already a really long waiting list for organs in this country and a pitiful amount given each year- less than a thousand; but most statins can either a) raise liver enzymes or b) cause kidney damage. Where are all these organs going to come from to replace the ones that are going to be shot from overmedicating kids from cardiac possibilities not even probabilities?

These drugs weren’t tested or made to be long term lifetime drugs. None have even been around for all of my lifetime- are you really willing to risk your child to guard against the possibility of something that may or may not happen? With those kinds of side effects?

June 6, 2007 — The benefits of taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs far outweigh the potential risks for the vast majority of patients with heart and vascular disease, a new review of the research suggests.

Longtime statin researcher Jane Armitage, MD, of the University of Oxford, found the incidence of serious side effects to be very rare in patients taking standard doses of the drugs, although the risks rose with higher doses.

Well perhaps Yale’s “more fluid concept of evidence” as documented in Integrative baloney @ Yale, http://dcscience.net/?p=231
The spoof video on YouTunbe of Yale’s contribution to endarkenment thinking has had a lot mote views that the originals, so perhaps there is hope yet for reason.

The fact is that most CAM activities in US medical schools don’t give a damn about evidence, as long as the bucks flow in from NCCAM and Bravewell.
They are making a laughing stock of US medicine, which is being set back to the days of make-believe that prevailed before the Flexner report (1810), or before the age of enlightenment itself.

But I was surprised at the number of RCTs with placebo there actually are of many CAM modalities. (I spent a year at our med school in a program about them.) Clearly, that is easier to do for some than others, although I’m sure you heard about the “fake acupuncture” studies and others.

What personally concerns me the most are the herbs and other supplements, and how little we know about adverses, interactions, etc., not to mention the amount of adulteration and misbranding. Happened to run across an “all natural”, guaranteed cholesterol product the other day that was full of red yeast rice, etc. And yet it advertised itself as “entirely safe,” “statin-free,” so “side-effects,” etc..

Tip of iceberg.