Critics object to 'pseudoscience' center

The impending national discussion about broadening access to healthcare, improving medical practice, and saving money is giving a group of scientists an opening to propose shutting down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. Critics of alternative medicine say the vast majority of studies of homeopathy, acupuncture, therapeutic touch, and other treatments based on unconventional understandings of physiology and disease have shown little or no effect. Further, they argue that the field's more-plausible interventions can be studied just as well in other parts of NIH, where they would need to compete head-to-head with conventional research projects.