National Center For Complementary and Alternative Medicine - Organization and History

Organization and History

NCCAM was established in October 1991, as the "Office of Alternative Medicine" (OAM), which was re-established as NCCAM in October 1998. Its mission statement declares that it is "dedicated to exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science; training complementary and alternative medicine researchers; and disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals."

Joseph M. Jacobs was appointed the first director of the OAM in 1992. Initially, Jacobs' insistence on rigorous scientific methodology caused friction with the Office's patrons, such as U.S. Senator Tom Harkin. Harkin criticized the "unbendable rules of randomized clinical trials" and, citing his use of bee pollen to treat his allergies, stated: "It is not necessary for the scientific community to understand the process before the American public can benefit from these therapies." Harkin's office reportedly pressured the OAM to fund studies of specific "pet theories," including bee pollen and antineoplastons. In the face of increasing resistance to the use of scientific methodology in the study of alternative medicine, one of the OAM board members, Barrie Cassileth, publicly criticized the office, saying: "The degree to which nonsense has trickled down to every aspect of this office is astonishing... It's the only place where opinions are counted as equal to data." Finally, in 1994, Harkin appeared on television with cancer patients who blamed Jacobs for blocking their access to antineoplastons, leading Jacobs to resign from the OAM in frustration with the political climate.

With the OAM's increasing budget in the 1990s, the Office drew increasing criticism for its perceived lack of rigorous scientific study of alternative approaches in favor of uncritical boosterism. Paul Berg, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, wrote to the Senate that "Quackery will always prey on the gullible and uninformed, but we should not provide it with cover from the N.I.H." Allen Bromley, then-president of the American Physical Society, similarly wrote to Congress that the OAM had "emerged as an undiscriminating advocate of unconventional medicine. It has bestowed the considerable prestige of the NIH on a variety of highly dubious practices, some of which clearly violate basic laws of physics and more clearly resemble witchcraft." A New York Times editorial described the OAM as "Tom Harkin's folly."

Ultimately, in 1998 the Office of Alternative Medicine was elevated to the status of an NIH Center and renamed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). With the increasing profile and budget of the Center, Stephen Straus, a former laboratory chief at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, was brought in to head NCCAM with a mandate to promote a more rigorous and scientific approach to the study of alternative medicine. On January 24, 2008, Josephine P. Briggs, M.D., was named Director of NCCAM.

The NCCAM funds research into complementary and alternative medicine, including support for clinical trials of CAM techniques.