Bob Park reports that

Stephen E. Straus, 60, Died of brain cancer. The first director of the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH, his task was to turn the quack-dominated Office of Alternative Medicine, created by Congress, into a scientific center. He did it with grace, the only way possible, subjecting one quack cure after another to randomized double-blind tests, while enduring attacks from scientists who thought he moved too slowly.

The Center seems to take an open-minded but clear-eyed view of alternative medicine. It notes, for example, that tests show the

efficacy of acupuncture … in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain.