NCAHF Newsletter articles from September 1994

NCAHF Newsletter archives from September 1994

Herb remedies cause deaths, birth defect.
September 1, 1994... California college student death. On August 14, a 24-year-old San Jose State University student collapsed after taking an extract of pennyroyal to induce an abortion. She died later that day at the San Jose Medical Center. The woman's parents...

The political undoing of consumer protection. What kind of people are we electing to Congress? Where are the public watchdogs? (acceptance of alternative medicine without imposing quality standards)
September 1, 1994... Motivated by the fear that national health care reform could impose standards they could not meet, promoters of "alternative" and "complementary" medicine have pulled out all of the stops in their political action efforts. Their success has...

NIH OAM director resigns; Herbert calls for investigation of appointees. (National Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine's Joseph Jacobs, Victor Herbert)
September 1, 1994... Joseph Jacobs, MD, resigned as director of the NIH Office of Alternative medicine (OAM). Jacobs said that he grew tired of working with "political people" who scoffed at using conventional research methods to test unconventional therapies....

Hatch's antiregulatory bias. (Orrin Hatch, regulation of alternative medicine)
September 1, 1994... "The Senator and the strange cure" (Private Eye Weekly, 6/8/94) provides insight into just how offbeat Orrin Hatch really is. It says that last spring Hatch paid several visits to Dr. Robert Morrow, a Utah orthopedic surgeon after being...

Quackery goes prime time. (commentary on NBC's airing of Cured! Secrets of Alternative Healing)
September 1, 1994... On July 5, NBC aired Cured! Secrets of Alternative Healing. Olympia Dukakis and Kenneth Harvey served as shills as skits depicted people alleged to have been cured by homeopathy, herbalism, Mesmerism, and acupuncture. The production fulfilled...

Wheatgrass therapy.
September 1, 1994... The idea that wheatgrass can benefit serious disease sufferers was conceived by Ann Wigmore, a Boston area resident. Wigmore (1909-94) was born in Lithuania and raised by her grandmother who, Wigmore said, gave her an unwavering confidence in...

Versendaal's contact reflex analysis. (D.A. Versendaal, using abnormal reflex reactions in diagnosing illnesses)
September 1, 1994... Stephen Barrett, MD, describes Contact Reflex Analysis (CRA), an elaborate pseudodiagnostic system in which the prescription of supplements is based upon the presence of "abnormal reflexes." CRA's cofounder and chief proponent is chiropractor...

The Vitamin Pushers: How the Health Food Industry is Selling America a Bill of Goods.
September 1, 1994... The Vitamin Pushers: How the Health Food Industry is Selling America a Bill of Goods, is a detailer investigative report explaining why the health food industry should be considered a form of organized crime. Written by NCAHF board members...