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Alternative Medicine Review

The first issue of a new journal providing scientific evaluations of alternative medical practices has now been published.

Vol. 1, No. 1 (Fall/Winter 1997) of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine includes analyses of homeopathy, therapeutic touch, chelation therapy, and the supposed anticancer agent hydrazine sulfate.

The journal, announced in our September/October 1997 issue (p. 31), is endorsed by the new Council for Scientific Medicine, edited by physician Wallace Sampson, and published by Prometheus Books. Sampson, a CSICOP fellow and longtime scientific critic of alternative medicine, is a clinical professor of medicine at Stanford University and associate chief of hematology/oncology at the Santa Clara Medical Center in San Jose, California. The executive editor is Lewis Vaughn, coauthor with Theodore Schick of How to Think About Weird Things.

The journal's founders say it is "the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated entirely to the scientific, rational evaluations of unconventional health claims."

In a statement, "In Defense of Scientific Medicine," the members of the Council for Scientific Medicine say they believe the need for "objective, scientific critiques of the claims of 'alternative' or nonconventional medicine has never been greater."

The efficacy of such treatments has not been shown, the media too often "dote on controversial and false claims," and the public and even some medical professionals seem unaware of credible, Scientific assessments of many alternative medical claims, said the Council. It also said several earlier new journals devoted exclusively to alternative medicine "merely advocate unconventional treatments and rarely assess them objectively."

Signers of the statement include five Nobel laureate scientists including Baruj Benacerraf, president emeritus of the Dana Farber Institute; Francis Crick of the Salk Institute; and Arthur Kornberg of Stanford University.

The Council said the journal will "apply the best tools of science and reason to determine the validity of hypotheses and the effectiveness of treatments. . . . It will . . . seek justified answers to two questions: 'Is it true?' and 'Does the treatment work?'"

In an opening editorial, "Why a New Alternative Medicine Journal?" Sampson says the existing journals in the field allow contributors to follow "trails of thought less encumbered by brambles of rigorous methodology."

"Proponents [of alternative medicine] are calling for a different set of evaluation techniques to include, or even be defined by, patient satisfaction. This journal will be devoted to the standard rational analysis of the claims."

The Review's debut received international media coverage at a press conference in October in Washington, D.C., that included CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, American Medical News, and the journals Science and Nature.

For subscription information, call 1-800-421-0351, 716-691-0133, or fax 716-691-0137.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
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