I am posting this as a talking point --
FYI - Reiki and Therapeutic Touch are under attack for the exact same reason Animal Magnetism was debunked all those years ago. Please understand that no one is questioning whether Reiki or TT is helpful - they are. The attacks are on the underlying theory of why Reiki and Therapeutic Touch help. Effectiveness is ignored when the theory can be debunked.
The two items below are frontal attacks on TT and Reiki based on the theory of why they work. Those who know me have often heard me share that I find the failure of most certified hypnotists to recognize the parallels between modern Energy Healing Modalities and Animal Magnetism mind-blowing! I do not believe that there is any magic in Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch or EFT in the same way I do not believe that there is any magic in any of the hypnotic techniques that we use. The magic is in our clients' beliefs and excited imaginations....The magic is in moving out of chronic "fight or flight states" and into "rest and digest states" simply because a body is unable to heal itself when in stress states.
In terms of science, there is no proof that energy is being transfered from healer to the patient/client. On the other hand, I am aware that most licensed drugs sold to the public do not work for most of the people taking them most of the time. What we have here is a classic case of people in Conventional Medical Glass Houses throwing rocks at people in Non-Conventional Medical Glass Houses.
I believe the attacks are greed and authority based. Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch and EFT are gaining acceptance and the powers-that-be don't like it! One reason they are gaining acceptance now is not being discussed - that is how the public has been socially conditioned for years to put more trust in external influences than in their own amazing inner-resources. How sad!
I wonder how many readers will understand that the amendment to the Health Care bill being discussed below is for protecting licensed health care professionals who practice Alternative Medicine. Even licensed MDs, DOs and RNs are currently at risk for censure, fines and delicensing for practicing Alternative Medicine, depending on where they practice.
Snip: "Now senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), along with support from the ranking member on the Senate health committee Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), are sponsoring an amendment to the health care reform bill which would support funding for alternative medicine, and also require all insurance companies to cover state-licensed alternative medicine providers, under the guise of prohibiting "discrimination" against such providers." Unsnip
What do you think?
Michael E.
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
September 28, 2009
Contact: Nathan Bupp
Phone: (716) 636-4869 x 218
E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net
Think Tank Objects to Taxpayer Funding for Therapeutic
Touch, other Alternative Medicine Therapies
Health-care reform should prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars
to cover non-evidence-based medicine, says CFI report
(Washington, D.C.) --The Center for Inquiry’s
Office of Public Policy (OPP), a group that lobbies for sound science in government policy, today released a report titled A Fracture in our Health Care: Paying for Non-Evidence Based Medicine. The report is highly critical of an effort underway to amend current health care reform legislation with provisions
allowing taxpayer dollars to support unsubstantiated “alternative”
medical treatments.
Americans are increasingly turning to various forms of
alternative medicine.The Washington Post has reported that
38% of adults in the United States have turned to acupuncturists, holistic chiropractors, herbal and homeopathic healers, and various other forms of non-standard treatments. Now
senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), and Barbara Mikulski
(D-Maryland), along with support from the ranking member on
the Senate health committee Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming),
are sponsoring an amendment to the health care
reform bill which would support funding for alternative medicine,
and also require all insurance companies to cover
state-licensed alternative medicine providers, under the guise
of prohibiting "discrimination" against such providers.
“Our report seeks to sound some alarm bells: we are coming
dangerously close to having lawmakers legitimize quackery by
putting the government stamp of approval on these unproven
treatments,” said Ronald A. Lindsay, President and CEO of the
Center for Inquiry. “We call upon the legislative branch to follow
President Obama’s lead and insist that public policy be informed
by sound scientific evidence.”
The CFI report focuses specifically on the lack of evidence for
therapeutic touch (TT), an example of the kind of
non-evidence-based medicine that would be covered under the
Harkin amendment. During therapeutic touch, practitioners
purport to massage the patient's "biomagnetic field" with their
hands. The report exposes this as nonsense, revealing that the
purported magnetic field is far too weak to affect any biochemical processes, and is billions of times less energetic than the energy our eye receives when viewing even the brightest star
in the night sky. The report points out that a study published
in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
found that “Twenty-one experienced TT practitioners were
unable to detect the investigators ‘energy field’. Their failure to
substantiate TT’s most fundamental claim is unrefuted evidence
that the claims of TT are groundless and that further professional use is unjustified.”
“CFI strongly opposes the wasting of taxpayer dollars on this and other non-evidence based medicine,” said Dr. Lindsay.
Dr. Wallace Sampson, a well-known critic of alternative medicine
and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, an affiliate of
CFI, said “Therapeutic Touch, an example of ‘Distant Healing,’ is
a scientific absurdity. This is bold foolishness, elected
representatives legislating into policy their own personal delusions. This is abuse of public office; and reason enough for recall or being voted out of office.” The Center for Inquiry’s
specific policy recommendations contained in the report are
as follows:
Government should spend no taxpayer dollars in support of
any alleged medical treatments or healing protocols, such
as Therapeutic Touch, that have no grounding in experiment or in our understanding of basic scientific fact.
Any health care reform bill Congress passes should prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to cover non-evidence-based medicine.
Congress should greatly reduce or eliminate funding for the
NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative
Medicine (NCCAM), as a decade of study has shown that
most alternative cures work no better than placebos.
“The United States can ill afford to continue wasting precious
resources on unproven – and often disproven – medical
techniques. (In the process of) reining in the ballooning cost of
medical care, every dollar of health care funding is needed to
provide tested, proven medical treatment to those who require it. It is inexcusable to squander scarce resources by funding unsubstantiated, non-evidence-based medical techniques that
have no basis in theory or experiment,” states the report.
A Fracture in our Health Care: Paying for Non-Evidence Based
Medicine was authored by Eugenie V. Mielczarek, emeritus
professor of physics at George Mason University in Fairfax,
VA., with assistance from Derek C. Araujo, general counsel of
the Center for Inquiry; Adam Magazine, a volunteer attorney
for CFI in New York City; and Lori Sommerfelt, a sociology major
at American University in Washington, DC.
A downloadable PDF copy of the full report is available
online atwww.centerforinquiry.net/touch.
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is a nonprofit, educational,
advocacy, and scientific-research think tank based in Amherst,
New York committed to fostering a secular society based on
science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.
The Center’s Web site iswww.centerforinquiry.net . CFI’s Office
of Public Policy (OPP) is the Washington D.C .lobbying arm of
the Center for Inquiry. The OPP’s mandate is to lobby Congress
and the Administration on issues related to science and
secularism. Their Web site can be found
at
www.centerforinquiry.net/opp
###
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Reiki banned at U.S. Catholic hospitals
Posted on: Tuesday, 22 September 2009, 23:07 CDT
The Catholic Church has banned promotion of reiki from its U.S. hospitals, with bishops saying it has no scientific or religious backing.
Debbie Griseuk learned about the Japanese healing technique at St. Joseph's Hospital in Manchester, N.H. She had to close her volunteer clinic there after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops made its decision in the spring.
The hospital says patients who request reiki will get it but there will be no more classes.
“The bishops did not do their research,'' Griseuk told the Boston Globe.”Reiki is not a belief system, not a cult, not a weirdo thing.''
Reiki practitioners place their hands just above “energy points” on patients' bodies to transfer positive energy. The practice, developed by a Japanese doctor about a century ago, is supposed to stimulate the immune system.
Researchers who have done studies of reiki suggest its benefits come from the placebo effect.
“Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, a Catholic who puts his or her trust in reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man's-land that is neither faith nor science,'' the bishops said in guidelines. ”Superstition corrupts one's worship of God by turning one's religious feeling and practice in a false direction.''
Source: United Press International
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