Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in Public Health

Paper Summary:

The paper explains that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) describes an array of healing modalities whose time for serious consideration and integration into the present healthcare system may have arrived. The paper states that homeopathy is the most controversial form of CAM and discusses the biases claiming that homeopathy treatment is an an implausible treatment, but affirms that homeopathy is an important topic for public health. This is due to the affordability, accessibility and efficacy of homeopathic remedies.

Outline:
The Perception of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Conventional Medicine
Homeopathy: Medicine of the past and the future
Implications for CAM in Public Health

From the Paper:

"It is possible that unfounded accusations of quackery and the like are but a smokescreen that has been thrown up to blur certain facts about CAM's increased appeal. It is also possible that conventional health practitioners and the pharmaceutical industry are striving to monopolize treatment in the US. It is more likely however, that evidence-based research, which has become the pinnacle of standards for excellence in testing the efficacy and safety of treatment with drugs, is an improper testing method for CAM (Novella et al., 2007). CAM uses few, if any pharmaceutical treatments, and should be held to appropriate contextual standards for what CAM in general, and each therapy in particular, claims. Homeopathy, for example, displays effects that are vastly different than the action of drugs, and requires fundamentally different protocols from which to study and gather evidence."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Cummings, S., & Ullman, D. (1991). Everybody's guide to homeopathic medicines. Los Angeles: Tarcher Perigee.
• Fearon, J. (2003). Complementary therapies: Knowledge and attitudes of health professionals. Pediatric Nursing, 15(6), 31-5.
• Konefal, J. (2002). The challenge of educating physicians about complementary and Alternative medicine. Academic Medicine, 77, 847-50.
• Milgrom, L. R. (2007). Toward a unified theory of homeopathy and conventional medicine. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 13(7), 759-69.
• Novella, S., Roy, R., Marcus, D., Bell, I.R., Davidovitch, N., & Saine, A. (2007). A debate:Homeopathy - quackery or a key to the future of medicine? Journal of Alternativeand Complementary Medicine, 13(7), 759-69

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