Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

 Skeptical Inquirer Electronic Digest, March 16, 2000

 Visit the CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine website at
 http://www.csicop.org. Receiving over 200,000 hits per year, the CSICOP site
 was rated one of the top ten science sites by HOMEPC magazine. Send comments
 regarding SI DIGEST to editors Matt Nisbet at mcn23@cornell.edu and Barry
 Karr at skeptinq@aol.com.

 In this edition of SI DIGEST:

 --NY TIMES: Scientists Say Herbs Need More Regulation
 --Resources from www.csicop.org on herbal remedies and alternative medicine
 --NPR ALL THINGS CONSIDERED: Theories of Rape
 --NY TIMES REVIEW: Second Opinions
 --NY TIMES: Arguing About Life and the Need for Death

 **NY TIMES: SCIENTISTS SAY HERBS NEED MORE REGULATION**

 Scientists Say Herbs Need More Regulation

 March 7, 2000

 For the full article, go to
 http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/030700hth-herbal-supp
 lements.html .

 By Denise Grady

 [CHAPEL HILL, N.C., March 3 --...That experience, and similar encounters
 with other patients taking herbal products with unknown ingredients and
 unknown effects, recommended by people with unknown credentials, led Dr.
 Arab to organize a scientific meeting on the subject.
 The two-day conference, "The Efficacy and Safety of Medicinal Herbs," which
 wrapped up today in Chapel Hill, was among the first in the nation to gather
 mainstream researchers from respected universities and to apply rigorous
 scientific standards to evaluating studies of herbal products. Duke
 University and the National Institutes of Health were co-sponsors, along
 with the University of North Carolina...]

 **RESOURCES FROM WWW.CSICOP.ORG ON HERBAL REMEDIES AND ALTERNATIVE
 MEDICINE**

 In February 1999, CSICOP sponsored a similar conference in Philadelphia
 featuring editors from the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal
 of the American Medical Society.  For a conference report and overview, go
 to http://www.csicop.org/articles/19990226-altmed/index.html .


 See also "Mystical Medical Alternativism" by Jack Raso from Skeptical
 Inquirer, Sept. 1995.
 For the full article, go to http://www.csicop.org/si/9509/alternativism.html
 .

 [Hundreds of mystical or supernaturalistic health treatment methods have
 been advanced in recent decades. Here are 31 of them...The term
 alternativism, which I coined last year, refers to a motley accumulation of
 movements whose central thesis seems to be: faith, based on common sense,
 subjective experience, or revelation preempts rational understanding.
 Medical alternativism is composed of three divisions that overlap one
 another....]

 For more information, use the search engine on the CSICOP web site for
 related terms like "alternative medicine, chinese medicine, acupuncture,
 nutritional supplements, homeopathy, chiropractic...etc."

 Also visit http://www.quackwatch.com, an excellent web resource maintained
 by CSICOP fellow Stephen Barrett, MD.


 **NPR ALL THINGS CONSIDERED: THEORIES OF RAPE**

 Recently, the National Public Radio (NPR) program "All Things Considered"
 featured a debate between Randy Thornhill, co-author of the controversial
 new book _A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion_,
 and some of his critics.

 HOST: Melinda Penkava

 January 26, 2000

 HOUR ONE: Theories of Rape

 GUESTS:
 RANDY THORNHILL
 *Co-Author, A Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion

 (January 2000) *Professor of Biology, University of New Mexico

 SUSAN BROWNMILLER
 *Author, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape

 JERRY COYNE
 *Professor at the University of Chicago, specializing in evolution and
 genetics

 Two evolutionary biologists have ignited a firestorm of controversy over
 their theory that rape has less to do with power and humiliation than with
 sexual desire and genetic imperatives. Critics say the theory has no basis
 in research, and worry about rapists offering a defense based on biology.
 Join Melinda Penkava and guests to examine a controversial new theory of
 rape.


 **NY TIMES REVIEW: SECOND OPINIONS**

 Stories of Intuition and Choice in the Changing World of Medicine.
 By Jerome Groopman.
 243 pp. New York:
 Viking. $24.95.

 Reviewed by By Howard Markel

 For the full review, go to
 http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/03/12/reviews/000312.12markelt.html .


 [There is an old adage that if you ask six doctors for their opinion on a
 medical condition, you should be prepared for at least a dozen different
 answers. This quandary is hardly new. In Hippocrates' day, doctors lined up
 to audition at the bedside by giving the patient a diagnosis and a
 predictive commentary on when things would get back to normal. In our
 present era of miraculous cures and advanced means to prevent disease,
 accurate diagnoses are more important than ever. And yet there still remain
 a few nagging problems: What do you do when your doctors disagree? How do
 you know that your physician will safely navigate you through the confusing
 morass of scientific data, clinical experience and his or her intuition? And
 how do you decide what is the best course to take when confronted with a
 serious illness? In ''Second Opinions,'' Jerome Groopman, who teaches at
 Harvard Medical School, presents eight clinical stories addressing these
 questions. He begins by describing his own history with a slipped vertebral
 disk that was mismanaged by a neurosurgeon far too eager to apply the
 scalpel. He then discusses a transformative experience when his infant son
 developed an intestinal blockage that was misdiagnosed by one physician and
 mismanaged by a second. After hours of unresolved crisis and sensing that
 their son was in critical danger, Groopman and his wife mustered the courage
 to seek still another opinion, resulting in an emergency operation that
 ultimately saved the baby's life. Groopman continues with well-told tales
 about a woman's dilemma of testing positive for the gene that predicts
 breast cancer and having to decide whether to undergo a prophylactic
 mastectomy; a young man with malignant melanoma who gets better despite all
 the scientific data that suggests he will soon die; a prominent Bostonian
 whose lymphoma is mismanaged by his longtime physicians; and a woman with
 fulminant leukemia that has crowded out the air spaces of her lungs, a
 condition misdiagnosed as asthma...]

 **NY TIMES: ARGUING ABOUT LIFE AND THE NEED FOR DEATH**


 Arguing About Life and the Need for Death
 March 7, 2000
 By Nicholas Wade

 For the full article, go to
 http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/030700hth-aging-ethic
 s.html .

 [PHILADELPHIA, March 6 -- Advances in research in recent years have raised
 the possibility of extending human life by decades. At a conference held
 here to discuss the consequences of such a development, scientists described
 the techniques of extending life, only to be assailed for presenting a
 threat to human nature. Far from accepting greater longevity as a blessing,
 ethicists and some theologians offered passionate praise of death. They
 argued that life without death would be meaningless and that the natural
 ambitions of career and family were satisfied within a life span of 80
 years. "We can't ban this research but we can make it socially despicable,"
 said Dr. Daniel Callahan, a biomedical ethicist at the Hastings Center in
 Garrison, N.Y....]

 _____________________________________________________________

 SI Electronic Digest is the biweekly e-mail news update of the Committee for
 the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)

 Visit http://www.csicop.org/.

 Rated one of the Top Ten Science sites on the Web by HOMEPC magazine.

 The Digest is written and edited by Matthew Nisbet and Barry Karr. SI Digest
 is distributed directly via e-mail to over 3000 readers worldwide, and is
 sent from CSICOP headquarters at the Center for Inquiry-International,
 Amherst NY, USA.

 To subscribe for free to the SI DIGEST, go to:
 http://www.csicop.org/list/

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 CSICOP publishes the bimonthly SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, The Magazine for Science
 and Reason.  The March/April 2000 issue features articles on "Vividness,
 Availibility, and the Media Paradox," "Physics and the Paranormal,"
 "Efficacy
 of Prayer," and "A Skeptical Analysis of Reverse Speech."

 To subscribe at the $18.95 introductory Internet price, go to:
 http://www.csicop.org/si/subscribe/

  --30--








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