Outcomes research

[Guest guest]

Yesterday, I got an email from Dr. David Eisenberg, MD. Some of you may

be familiar with Dr. Eisenberg's landmark studies on alternative

medicine usage published in JAMA, studies which played a crucial role in

giving credibility to the permanent establishment of the National Center

for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH. Dr.Eisenberg and his

colleague at Harvard, Ted Kapchuk (no intros, necessary, I assume) are

very interested in our fledgling Chinese Herbal Database. Like myself,

Harvard is interested in documented outcomes.

 

Unfortunately, no one has been rushing to add data to the base, so I

thought I'd tell you a little more about this. First, its easy and only

takes about 2-5 minutes per case. Second, its anonymous for all parties

involved. Third, it may be the only way to get some good research done

on Chinese herbs.

 

Medical doctors and researchers are very wary of chinese herbs right

now, still in the aftermath of numerous aristolochia induced kidney

failures, not just in belgium, but worldwide. This fear is completely

misplaced, but most MD's who search through medline are very aware of

this issue and err on the side of caution and avoid the herbs

altogether. In addition, the nature of complex formulae add additonal,

often insurmountable hurdles to the clinical research process. Before a

formula can be used in a study, each ingredient must be proven safe.

Acupuncture is considered de facto, safe, and it is, so it is much

easier to research.

 

This lack of research and lack of enthusiasm to do research creates a

double-bind that can be overcome by what is called outcomes research.

Outcomes research uses documented cases from private clinics that are

gathered into a large group database for statistical analysis. Starting

to sound familiar?

 

This is what piqued Dr. Eisenberg's interest. Preliminary database

analyses such as ours can be used to write research proposals to NIH

(possibly in conjunction with Harvard, which would certainly add some

prestige to our cause). Now, if this all sounds just too boring, just

remember that research is not done for free; the folks who do it get

paid for their efforts. Research funding could be used to pay for

herbs, patient care and hourly compensation for participating clinics

nationwide. So your patients being studied would get free care and you

would get paid reasonably to provide it. All in return for providing

the required data.

 

However, this is all a pipe dream unless we can create a preliminary

database to analyze.

 

The database can be accessed at

/database/

 

You may need your password (which is the same as your old

onelist password). If you have lost your password, contact via

their support page at /info/contact.html

 

The chinese Herb Academy does not have access to your password