Senator Tom Coburn used to do an annual report of the most ridiculous abuses of taxpayer money and it always got attention because his Wastebook didn't care if the party behind it was Republican or Democrat, he was a towering figure in fiscal conservatism.
You work hard for your money and he wanted you to know when government squandered it. A Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska or a 'study' of how college students use cellphones, none of it should have been using taxpayer funding, but those and many others were.
He wouldn't be thrilled about nearly $2 million to tell us acupuncture and music therapy still don't work. Especially not for cancer patients in pain. That is Woomeister-In-Chief Bill Clinton nonsense that should stay in the 1990s.
Yet if the government will give them the money, University Hospitals in Ohio will pretend they believe. “Data shows both music therapy and acupuncture improve pain and anxiety for patients with short-term and long-term pain. This will be an evidence-based technique we can offer patients without the potential risk of substance use disorder,” claims Dr. Kiran Faryar, director of research in the department of emergency medicine. Well, no, data do not show that, any more than prayers or organic food work, and if I find out you have prescribed music therapy for a patient in pain rather than medicine, I will lead the charge to have your license revoked.
If you consult an astrocartographer, you are for more likely to believe in acupuncture than someone literate. Unless you have real pain, then you are likely to suddenly believe in science again.
Music 'therapy' is not therapy, it is just music, while acupuncture works so poorly even fake acupuncture has the same effect on people who believe in acupuncture. They are both placebos. Placebos are fine, if you believe in them, but they are not medicine and doctors should not endorse placebos for patients.
It is wishful thinking nonsense exploiting concerns about opioid abuse. Abuse which is overwhelmingly recreational and obtained illegally, not for pain patients. Give pain patients pain medication. If you think a patient is faking it, show that, but don't tell people in pain it's 'all in their head' and tiny needles and Beethoven will cure it. Certainly don't claim it in print. If the academic community begins to look at cosmic claims about alternatives to medicine the way they care about vaccine denial once Republicans began to do it, you're going to have lawyers lined up to sue you.
