This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, September 7th, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Despite the week record of alternative medicine to prove its efficacy, federal funding for alternative remedies has skyrocketed.

And it can all be traced back to the efforts of former Senator Tom Harkin.

Todd Cranon of Reason TV has produced a short film on alternative medicine and federal money.

We spoke last week.

So describe the Office of Alternative Medicine.

So this is a story about the rise of alternative medicine in the United States.

It's been around a long time, but really over the last 25 years it has started earning government support, first in a trickle and then in a river.

And really starting about 25 years ago, it was the brainchild of a single person, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.

In the late 80s, he believed that bee pollen extract cured his hay fever.

And as a result, he started thinking,

this is amazing.

The American public should be benefiting

from all of these natural remedies and cures that are out there waiting to be discovered,

whether it's traditional Chinese medicine or Ayurvedo or herbs or chiropractic, all of these things.

And so he was the very powerful chair

of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate

that oversees the budget for the National Institutes of Health and he was able to more

or less single-handedly create this Office of Alternative Medicine at the NIH.

Which received, if I recall correctly, less than $20 million in its first budget year.

Much less than that, it actually started as a miniscule amount truly.

...