Question:
The propaganda campaign against alternative medicine foisted anotherdisinformation tract on the American public recently with the publicationof the first issue of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine,published by Prometheus Books in Amherst, New York.

The semi-annual publication purports to be "the first peer-reviewedjournal dedicated entirely to the scientific, rational evaluation ofunconventional health claims." It promises its readers to apply "the besttools of science and reason to determine the validity" of alternativemedicine theories and practices.

It sounds good, but the goodness is only on the surface. Prominent mediasuch as The San Francisco Chronicle evidently bought the propaganda linewholesale. In a news report of the magazine, the Chronicle uncriticallyregurgitated the dissimulating claims that the journal's editors "insistthey can remain unbiased and ready to accept any healing technique if itseffectiveness can be proved by strictly controlled clinical trials."

There are three facts counseling the discerning reader to be wary of thispublication and its source. First, there is the fact that at least four ofthe 17 contributing editors are well-known by alternative practitioners asself-proclaimed "quackbusters," doctors who are intolerant of anythingoutside of conventional medicine. They are hardly perceived as objectiveanalysts; they are perceived as defamers of alternative medicineregardless of clinical efficacy. Second, there is the fact that PrometheusBooks, the journal's publisher, is well known for its "quackbusting"titles, several of which are written by these same editors.

This kind of blanket denunciation of an entire field hardly seems theproper state of mind for doctors who will exemplify the "best tools ofscience and reason." The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine mayindeed deliver on their promise of peer review, but not in the usualsense. With this kind of interlocking membership, readers should expect aconsistent attitude of disparagement from this old boys' club ofquackbuster peers.

After all, Quackwatch publishes a list of "nonrecommended periodicals."This includes 65 health magazines and 42 health newsletters-nearly everyNorth American publication that addresses alternative medicine. Thesemagazines are "unreliable because they promote misinformation, espouseunscientific theories, and/or contain unsubstantiated advice," declaresQuackwatch.

Clearly their idea of an "unbiased" review of the field is to eliminateall information about the subject not by them from the newsstand and tokeep Americans and Canadians from learning anything accurate or helpful totheir health. Their notion of "strictly controlled clinical trials" seemsto mean strictly controlling all information about clinical trials thatsupport alternative medicine. Sociologists usually call this approachcensorship.

The formulators of this wholesale denouncement of nearly all mediareporting on alternative medicine are some of the same people who aresupposedly discussing alternative medicine scientifically and objectivelyin The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine. Do they really expect topull off this con?

Probably the best advice to our readers regarding this latest installmentin the propaganda war comes from Quackwatch itself: "The best way to avoidbeing tricked is to stay away from tricksters. Unfortunately, in healthmatters, this is no simple task. Quackery is not sold with a warninglabel." But it is, and it's devilishly simple when the quackbuster is thequack.

Noting that quacks are adept at selling themselves, Quackwatch concludes:"Sad to say, in most contests between quacks and ordinary people, thequacks are likely to win." That is no longer so. Once you know how to spota quack-that is, a quackbuster's name, journal, publisher-you'll never beconned again.

Answer: Ilena just doesn't like the idea of "alternative" therapies and medicinebeing subject to the same scientific review process that conventionalmedicine has been subject to for decades.