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CARA: Integrating even more pseudoscience into veterans’ healthcare
The pixels were barely dry on David Gorski’s lament over the expansive integration of pseudoscience into the care of veterans when President Obama signed legislation that will exacerbate this very problem. The “Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2016” (“CARA”) contains provisions that will undoubtedly keep Tracy Gaudet, MD, and her merry band of integrative medicine aficionados at the VA busy for the next few years integrating even more quackery into veterans’ medical care.
CARA is intended to address the serious prescription drug abuse problem in the U.S. It provides grants for local communities dealing with drug abuse crises and for drug abuse programs, improves access to overdose reversal medication and medication-assisted treatment for drug addiction, and assists in training first responders, among other things. It also includes provisions related to pain management, such as development of best practices to treat pain. None of that is the problem.
Deep in the Act, almost at the end, is “Subtitle C – Complementary and Integrative Health,” which begins with “Expansion of research and education on and delivery of complementary and integrative health to veterans.” I am not sure who stuck this into the new law, but it is only tangentially related to addiction and recovery. It establishes the “Creating Options for Veterans’ Expedited Recovery” Commission or, in the acronym-rich language of government, “COVER.”
The COVER Commission is to examine the evidence-based therapy treatment models used by the VA for treating mental health conditions and “the potential benefits of incorporating complementary and integrative health treatments available in non-Department facilities.” This effort is to be directed at improving “wellness-based outcomes.” Authority to use “non-Department facilities” means that complementary and integrative services not provided in-house will be available to veterans, substantially expanding the opportunity to send them to questionable facilities.
more~~~https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/cara-integrating-even-more-pseudoscience-into-the-healthcare-of-veterans/
CARA is intended to address the serious prescription drug abuse problem in the U.S. It provides grants for local communities dealing with drug abuse crises and for drug abuse programs, improves access to overdose reversal medication and medication-assisted treatment for drug addiction, and assists in training first responders, among other things. It also includes provisions related to pain management, such as development of best practices to treat pain. None of that is the problem.
Deep in the Act, almost at the end, is “Subtitle C – Complementary and Integrative Health,” which begins with “Expansion of research and education on and delivery of complementary and integrative health to veterans.” I am not sure who stuck this into the new law, but it is only tangentially related to addiction and recovery. It establishes the “Creating Options for Veterans’ Expedited Recovery” Commission or, in the acronym-rich language of government, “COVER.”
The COVER Commission is to examine the evidence-based therapy treatment models used by the VA for treating mental health conditions and “the potential benefits of incorporating complementary and integrative health treatments available in non-Department facilities.” This effort is to be directed at improving “wellness-based outcomes.” Authority to use “non-Department facilities” means that complementary and integrative services not provided in-house will be available to veterans, substantially expanding the opportunity to send them to questionable facilities.
more~~~https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/cara-integrating-even-more-pseudoscience-into-the-healthcare-of-veterans/