<P> Everyone, then, who deals with organizations understands the bureaucratic logic of Catch - 22 . In high school or college, for example, students can participate in student government, a form of self - government and democracy that allows them to decide whatever they want, just so long as the principal or dean of students approves . This bogus democracy that can be overruled by arbitrary fiat is perhaps a citizen's first encounter with organizations that may profess' open' and libertarian values, but in fact are closed and hierarchical systems . Catch - 22 is an organizational assumption, an unwritten law of informal power that exempts the organization from responsibility and accountability, and puts the individual in the absurd position of being excepted for the convenience or unknown purposes of the organization . </P> <P> Along with George Orwell's "doublethink", "Catch - 22" has become one of the best - recognized ways to describe the predicament of being trapped by contradictory rules . </P> <P> A significant type of definition of alternative medicine has been termed a catch - 22 . In a 1998 editorial co-authored by Marcia Angell, a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, argued that: </P> <P> "It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride . There cannot be two kinds of medicine--conventional and alternative . There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work . Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset . If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted . But assertions, speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence . Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments ." </P>

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