From Science Based Medicine comes an article about the World Health Organization (WHO) giving tacit approval to alternative medicine.

So it is extremely disappointing that the WHO, in its latest International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), has chosen to include a chapter on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) diagnoses.

The ICD codes are, as the name implies, an international standard for medical diagnoses. They are used in the US for billing and epidemiological records; all doctors are familiar with them and many, like David, are not fans. The codes are obsessively at the “splitter” end of the spectrum, and can make an otherwise simple task rather challenging and frustrating. But at least they are based in reality.

With the coming ICD-11, and the chapter on TCM, this is no longer strictly true. There is no way to honestly view the TCM chapter as anything other than a full-throated endorsement of pseudoscience in medicine.

I know many of my fellow libertarians aren’t big on regulators going after AltMed remedies and “therapies.” After all, consenting adults should be able to choose what they do with their own bodies. I have issues with trusted organizations for reliable information- which the WHO normally is – kowtowing to popular pressure against practices that they know do not work.