APR-A-7
THE COMPLEMENTARY
AND ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE LISTS
FOR WHICH THE
CLASSIC CRUISE IS DESIGNED
NEXT FEBRUARY FOR
THE MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
LECTURER/LEADER
PARTICIPATION—
WITH THE CAVEATS
THAT I AM NOT ENDORISNG FAD CURES
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: "ljmyers2718@juno.com".IA4GW.Harper
Date: 4/3/02 11:30AM
Subject: Re: Maya trips
There is an Institute with a large mailing list which I just received in several flyers this morning, named HSI The Health Sciences Institute. Ph 508/368‑7494, or HSI 819 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21201, Fax 410/230‑1273 or subscriberadvocate@agora‑inc.com They call themselves specialists in underground medicine, and I have told them I have significant reservations about any sensationalist headlines or unfounded claims of "cures." I am a sceptic remaining open‑minded on this subject, yet do not want to be swept up in any snake‑oil hoaxes from kooks that live off the desperate or gullible.
I have just been at the NIH reviewing the new website for the CCAM The Center from Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Their web site is a clearinghouse for all the contacts and research and group interests that include mailing lists, and may not yet be fully open to the public, but was www.ccam.org and they can also be found by calling NIH
John Pan MD is the Director of a Center for Alternative Medicine (202/994‑4218 ) here in GWUMC and is connected with the physicians and groups looking into complementary means of addressing some health problems.
Each of the news releases in the packet I just received relates some "startling breakthrough" from Mayan or Incan lore, which might fulfil what it is that you need as a link. I am, however, representative of the physician population who are turned off by the continuous announcements of the miraculous panaceas that never quite measure up when any one of them is examined carefully rather than perpetually hopefully.
I prefer just to look at the adaptation of populations into their own ecologic niche and investigate their means for solving some of the problems that have evolved empirically I follow this interest as an anthropologist, (I attach an example of a trip in which I looked at the Incan Trilogies in their cosmology and how it fit their brand of medicine) but this is not the same as the exuberant hucksterism of uncritical salesmen testifying to anecdotal use of unproven agents.
The medical doctor needs a much higher index of authentication over the ethnobotany I have watched evolve for which immediate and untested cures are heralded. I would not endorse any of the claims of cures that have not been confirmed in unbiased tests, which are usually lacking.
I would like to keep the credibility of the Classic Crusie and its lecture content high and neutral as a study of the environment we will be looking into and its historic and cultural roots in human adaptations rather than get coopted by uncritical advocates of a given group or "cure."
GWG
>>> Linda Myers <ljmyers2718@juno.com> 04/03/02 08:40AM >>>
Dear Dr. Geelhoed:
Would you be able to recommend any clinics or healers or other ways we
could broaden the medical interest of the trips you will be lecturing on
so as to introduce our American doctors to native medical methods in the
areas we'll be visiting. We are looking to offer excursions with
particular medical interest, perhaps somewhere where native herbs are
grown, processed, used, etc. or any other ideas you may have that would
appeal to doctors visiting there. Would you please e‑mail any of your
suggestions to jswift@travdyn.com. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Linda Myers
Classical Cruises
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