Helene M. Langevin recently announced her retirement as director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). Here are some excerpts from her announcement:
After seven years as director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), I will be retiring from my position on November 30, 2025. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to serve in this role and for how deeply rewarding it has been.
I came to NCCIH with a mission to drive positive change in how we craft research questions that impact people’s ability to lead healthy lives. What I saw was an opportunity—and a pressing need—to advance scientific investigation into whole person health. By charting new understanding of how different domains of health—physiology, psychology, environment—interconnect and impact people across the bidirectional continuum between health and illness, I felt we could open new doors to improve the health of Americans and reduce the crushing burden of chronic disease in the United States…
I’m deeply proud of the many NCCIH-led initiatives during my tenure that NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya acknowledged in his message…
Following my retirement from NCCIH, I look forward to returning to where my academic career began, the University of Vermont. I will be joining the team there to help build a research program at the Osher Center for Integrative Health at UVM. I’m also excited to take on an advisory role at the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health…
It has truly been my honor to serve as NCCIH director and contribute to the important body of research that has been built since the Center was founded in 1998. As we drive toward deeper knowledge about whole person health, I know that the questions that researchers are answering will help equip more people to live healthier lives.
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But what precisely are her contributions to the important body of research that has been built since the Center was founded in 1998? I pride myself of observing closely what is happening in so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), and I have to admit that nothing major springs into my mind. So, I asked AI and got this as her major contributions:
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Whole Person Health Framework
She championed “whole person health” as a central paradigm, pushing the idea that health isn’t just absence of disease but involves integration across physiological, psychological, environmental, behavioral domains. -
Trans-NIH Integration & Collaboration
Under her leadership, NCCIH led or co-led several NIH-wide initiatives, breaking down silos. These included projects with many Institutes, Centers, and Offices to map healthy physiology and integrate research efforts.
In view of the fact that the centre was set up to find out which SCAMs work, this seems odd. Under her directorship the NCCIH’s budget has increased from ~$142 million in 2018 upwards. Surely, she has more to show for this kind of money?
Which forms of SCAM has she shown to be effective?
As far as I can see, the answer is NONE!
One Response to Helene M. Langevin announced her retirement as director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
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I think you are correct. In fact, the NCCIH burned through approximately 2.5 billion dollars in taxpayer money during the same period – almost a 1000 times the expenditure of your department – with virtually no tangible or otherwise useful results whatsoever.
The financial figures are simply verifiable facts, and so are the papers produced by either organization. So I think you did an excellent as well as vitally important job with just a moderate but sufficient budget.
This says it all, really:
‘In 2009, after 17 years of government testing for $2.5 billion, almost no clearly proven efficacy of alternative therapies had been found. Senator Harkin complained, “One of the purposes of this center was to investigate and validate alternative approaches. Quite frankly, I must say publicly that it has fallen short. I think quite frankly that in this center and the office previously before it, most of its focus has been on disproving things rather than seeking out and approving.” ‘
Harkin is the perfect example of a rather dim politician: het thinks that you can prove (‘validate’) anything that you believe in by throwing enough money at it – and he refuses to change his mind if it turns out that what he believes in is wrong.