23 years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to investigate a wide variety of unconventional medical practices from around the world. 5.5 billion dollars later, the NIH has found no cures for disease.

Behind the dubious medical claims of Dr. Mehmet Oz and Deepak Chopra is a decades-long strategy to promote alternative medicine to the American public. Twenty-three years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began to investigate a wide variety of unconventional medical practices from around the world. Five-and-a-half billion dollars later, the NIH has found no cures for disease. But it has succeeded in bringing every kind of quackery — from faith healing to homeopathy — out of the shadows and into the heart of the American medical establishment.