http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/altmed/etc/synopsis.html

~~~ Thanks Kathi ... found another link for this ... think it should
be well read ... especially with so many professionals who are trying
to destroy alternatitive therapies prevalent on Usenet ... see them
at:
www.humanticsfoundation.com/andysposse.htm#Rag-TagPosse



After three years, $45,000, and five attempts at in vitro
fertilization, Gil and Christie Goren said, "Enough."

Frustrated by their experiences with fertility specialists and modern
medicine in general, the Los Angeles couple decided to take a
different approach to getting pregnant. Foregoing test tubes and
artificial insemination, they placed their hopes and dreams for a
child into the hands of a group of traditional Maori healers visiting
from New Zealand. The head of the healers, "Papa Joe," has told
Christie that following his treatment—which involves deep tissue
massage and chanting—she will likely become pregnant within three
weeks.

The Gorens are not alone. They are among a growing number of Americans
whose disenchantment with modern health care has led them to seek
alternative therapies. From acupuncture to homeopathy, herbal
supplements to chiropractic, complementary and alternative medicine
(CAM) has become an $48 billion a year industry in America—one that
traditional hospitals and medical schools are now eagerly embracing.
But do these treatments actually work? Are they safe? And have medical
professionals put aside their doubts in the efficacy of complementary
medicine treatments in order to cash in on a multimillion-dollar
market?

In "The Alternative Fix," FRONTLINE® examines the controversy over
complementary and alternative medicine. The one-hour documentary
features interviews with staunch supporters, skeptical scientists, and
other observers on both sides of the alternative medicine debate and
questions whether hospitals that offer alternative therapies are
inappropriately conveying a sense of legitimacy to these largely
untested and scientifically unproven treatments.

FRONTLINE traces the mainstreaming of alternative medicine to the
halls of Congress and one U.S. senator's allergies. Viewers meet Sen.
Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who recalls complaining to a friend about his
terrible allergies. The friend said he knew someone who could cure the
senator's allergies using bee pollen.

"I went on this very tough regimen of taking a lot of bee pollen,
sometimes as much as sixty pills a day," Harkin tells FRONTLINE. "And
literally on about the tenth day, all of a sudden my allergies just
left. Well, that's when I began to think, 'We've got to have somebody
looking at these different approaches.'"

Harkin, the chairman of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education Committee, convinced Congress to allocate $2 million to the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the study of alternative
medicine. Ten years later, the National Center for Complementary and
Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) has a budget of over $100 million and is
funding hundreds of research projects around the nation. Still, hard
evidence on whether alternative treatments actually work is hard to
come by: large scale randomized controlled clinical trials take years
and millions of dollars. Also, some alternative practioners argue that
their therapies are not appropriate for traditional scientific
testing. Naturopathy, for example, is a system of medicine which
tailors remedies to each particular patient, so two people with an ear
infection might receive two very different treatments. It would not be
possible, proponants say, to evaluate these individualized treatments
in a large scale trial.

So the question remains: Do complementary and alternative medicine
treatments actually work? In "The Alternative Fix," FRONTLINE examines
the few research studies conducted on alternative treatments, while
also previewing several larger studies currently underway, including
one of the largest studies ever done on the efficacy of acupuncture.
Yet even if these new studies prove that the treatments in question
are no more effective than a placebo, will the legions of consumers
who spend billions on them be swayed?

Not likely, alternative treatment proponents say. "People are fed up
with being passive recipients of authoritarian, paternalistic
medicine," says noted alternative healer Dr. Andrew Weil. "And many of
these systems make people feel they are more autonomous, more in
charge of their own destiny."

Hester Young agrees. In the past fifteen years, Young has battled
breast cancer, rectal cancer, and lung cancer. But after undergoing
chemotherapy and other traditional therapies the first two times
around, she says she simply couldn't face the debilitating treatments
when her doctor diagnosed cancer in her lungs. Although never
confirmed through a biopsy, she began looking for alternative cancer
treatments.

Today, six years later, she credits her survival to a special regimen
prescribed by Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, an alternative cancer specialist
who prescribes controversial—and expensive— treatments such as
repeated coffee enemas and megadoses of supplements to cancer patients
desperate for a cure. The NIH is currently studying Dr. Gonzalez's
claims that nutritional therapy can help prolong life for cancer
patients. But if the tests conclude the doctor's treatments are
ineffective, Hester Young doesn't want to hear it. "Nothing they could
say would make me feel differently," she says, "because I'm feeling
well and it's a success as far as I'm concerned."

Despite the lack of positive evidence, some of the nation's leading
hospitals and medical centers have embraced lucrative alternative
therapies, offering them alongside more traditional treatments. New
York's Beth Israel Hospital, for example, now houses the Continuum
Center for Health and Healing, which offers such alternative
treatments as guided imagery, acupuncture, and homeopathy—despite the
fact that some practitioners confess to not knowing how or why their
treatments work. In the documentary, viewers watch Beth Israel's Dr.
Edward Shalts treat a five-year-old boy's behavior problems with
homeopathic pills that contain microscopic amounts of ground up
tarantula—a treatment other doctors say can't possibly be effective.
The charges don't seem to trouble Dr. Matt Fink, former president and
CEO of Beth Israel Hospital. "If hospitals don't get involved in these
kinds of programs they will lose patients because patients will go
elsewhere," Fink tells FRONTLINE. "So, like any other new discoveries,
you can either lead or you can follow."

"The Alternative Fix" also follows the money to examine the big
business of herbal supplements. In 1994, Congress passed the Dietary
Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), a controversial bill that
limited the Food and Drug Administration's power to regulate dietary
supplements at a time when the FDA was gearing up to increase its
regulation of what has since become an $18 billion a year industry.
Supporters claim that the bill protects the freedom of American
consumers to take care of their own health by assuring access to a
range of natural products. Critics say the bill was passed at the
behest of the powerful supplement lobby, and that without regulation,
many supplements are worthless at best, and dangerous at worst.
[Editor's Note: Since this report was first broadcast, the FDA has
banned the sale of dietary supplements containing ephedra, ruling that
such supplements pose "an unreasonable risk of illness or injury."]

FRONTLINE's report continues on this web site, where you'll find
resources for consumers interested in CAM, guides to understanding the
controversial scientific evidence on alternative medicine, a report on
the history of the tug-of-war between conventional and alternative
medical practioners, and more.