My role is to discuss the evidence and science as I know it. If someone want’s anything beyond that then I suggest they try someone else.

If anyone has a reply to that type of logic, I would love to hear it.

When I lived in Florida, I wondered how so many chiropractors were able to survive in practice in the community where I once lived, there were so many of them, yet physical and occupational therapists were leaving town for better opportunities. Obviously they were able to offer something their patients wanted and were willing to pay cash to get. It wasn’t manual spinal adjustment, or nutritional counseling alone, as those services were available elsewhere; it may have been to have someone else listen to them tell about their problem, or even to hear some other proposal to treat a chronic or intractable complaint. I came to believe that part of it was the investment people had made in their therapy by having paid for it and the wish, whether or not that was verifiable, that the therapy was successful and worthwhile.
It was as if the commitment carried a psychological momentum.

The medical schools see this, and they also see the trends in third-party reimbursement and they are trying to cash in. The problem is they are using their institutional reputations–based on excellence in conventional medicine– to seize market share.

It is like hanging the university seal over the door of a rub parlor.

To me, part of this revolves around money. Keep in mind that the fiscal woes of academic medical centers has led them to seek other sources of revenue – and, the public has been demanding and consuming more CAM services.

The folks seeking CAM therapies may tend towards the better-off, and since many of these therapies aren’t covered by insurance, centers can charge cash and get what they ask for (as noted in the blog posts describing upfront fees). Acadademic medical centers want in on the uncomplicated and growing pool of money people are willing to put out for these therapies.