Sacred Cows, Waste, and Political Spines
Mike Abrams, Executive Vice President of the Iowa Medical Society
At some point, politicians need to admit when a costly experiment has failed, and be willing to toss failed programs on the policy scrap heap.
The National Center for Complementary Medicine was born in 1999 when people were quite sure that herbal remedies would save our health care system incalculable costs and deliver happiness and health, weaning us from our pills and therapies. An interesting thing happened on the way back from the herb garden - the remedies did not work.
According to an AP article, we spent $2.5 billion learning that Echinacea did not help colds, ginko biloba did nothing for memory, glucosamine is ineffective for arthritis, as is chondroitin, and black cohosh does not help menopausal hot flashes. But instead of cancelling the program and using the $2.5 billion to help pay for real health reform, we are funding additional studies, including energy fields and distance healing. When a small research trial taught us that acupressure is not an effective weight loss technique, it won a $2 million research grant.
Granted, $2.5 billion is not a lot of money when it comes to funding a $1 trillion health reform initiative. But it is easy to understand those who become skeptical of the government's ability to manage such a large, complex system when there are such glaring examples of waste.
Water freezes at 32-degrees Fahrenheit. No amount of protest or advocacy will change that fact, regardless of how much money we spend on it. When science argues against a mode of treatment, those spending our tax dollars need to be willing to stare down the advocacy community and target resources to those areas that offer a real opportunity to improve health and safety.