Bizarre post on Science-Based Medicine [View All]

[salvorhardin]

Wallace Sampson writing at Science-Based Medicine seems to be arguing against national health care for fear that the political system will be used to enshrine alt-med in federal health policy and law:

Licensing of chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths in US states lends legitimacy. Those occupations got licensing through political pressure and a lot of campaign contributions.

Once included in a federal system, they will be more difficult to expel. If we can meet sectarianism in the open field, I think they have lesser chance for success. But once entwined in the net of the law, they are barely reachable.
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=1244

This seems like bizarre argument to me, similar to NRA nuts who argue that any gun control regulation will lead to the loss of the right to bear arms. I'm sure that cranks like Dennis Kucinich will try, and possibly succeed, in getting alt-med paid for by any proposed national health care program but good gawd, the sCAMmers are already out there. They're getting alt-med into University medical training programs, and some insurance companies already pay for treatments that have little evidence to demonstrate effectiveness (such as chiropractic and acupuncture). Also, sCAM is doing quite well for itself in the free market. I have little hope that it won't continue to do so despite the best efforts of skeptics. Acceptance of non-evidenced based medicine is a cultural and educational problem. To disallow health care for 47 million uninsured Americans, and millions more who are underinsured, for fear that homeopathy might be paid for is just insane to me.

On edit: Maybe a better analogy would be that arguing against national health care for fear of it being co-opted by alt-med woos is like arguing against having a military for fear it'll be co-opted by believers in pseudoscience and the paranormal (ala General Stubblebine).