This blog site is not about complementary medicine as such, but rather focus on a specific Institute, the National Institute of Complementary Medicine (NICM), Australia. There are a number of valuable blog sites and resources that deals with complementary medicine in general, of which the blog site of Prof Edzard Ernst is highly recommended. You can find it here (http://edzardernst.com). Friends of Science in Medicine also provides valuable information and insight into the world of complementary medicine. You can find it here (http://www.scienceinmedicine.org.au).
The reason why we focus on the NICM is not only because one of us has worked there for a number of years but rather that we have first-hand knowledge of what happens when a university allow pseudo-sciences to get a foot in the door. The NICM is therefore not the real problem but rather a result of a much deeper underlying issue. When the gatekeepers of science let their guard down for the sake of external income and international rankings then we are in serious trouble – the NICM, using complementary medicine as their vehicle to achieve their dubious objectives, is a prime example of this.
We therefore aim to address both these issues.
1. It is too late to prevent society from being flooded with unproven and disproven complementary, alternative and integrative medicines (due to the efforts of the NICM and the like) under the guise of ‘evidence-based’, but we should aim to reverse this trend. The only way to do this is to continue to publicly expose how the NICM mislead the public, regulators, lawmakers and all other stakeholders. The public should, with the information provided on this blog site and others, start to put pressure on all these stakeholders for true reform. This is obviously easier said than done. We can, unfortunately, only provide information on how this truly shocking game is being played at the NICM and what the (future) impact on society will be if it goes unchecked.
2. To address the second issue is much more complicated. Very few university’s will ignore millions of dollars from the complementary medicine industry for the sake of protecting the integrity of science, scientific education and the well-being of society – which is alarming because most universities are funded mainly by the public. Unfortunately, and even after repeatedly being warned about these dangers, this is exactly what has happened at Western Sydney University (WSU). We therefore aim to publicly expose how WSU play the game and what the (future) impact of this is on science, education and on society.
As a secondary aim, we request anonymous information about any verifiable information exposing any wrongdoing at the NICM or WSU (we already have enough data to keep us busy for a very long time but you never know what might turn up). This is preferable although we do welcome information from other fields of science and also from other universities (let’s call this “academic-leaks”). Information regarding how to send anonymous emails or documents can be found here (http://www.wikihow.com/Send-An-Anonymous-Email). We do not care about who you are, as long as the information provided can be verified and that it clearly contains information about any wrongdoing e.g. data falsification, fabrication, cover ups, bullying etc. If the information can be verified, it will be published on this blog site as is. This is needed to put pressure on universities, especially WSU, to make a true effort to return to unbiased scientific research and student training as their main objectives. Yes, it will take a long time but it can, and should, be done!!
You can follow me on Twitter: @frank_kooy or contact me directly at: frankvanderkooy@gmail.com
