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I’d like to address a provocative question asked by a concerned individual at one website, http://www.naturalhealthvillage.com/: Is Alternative Medicine Dead? He, along with many others, feels this may be happening due to the fact that it has become somewhat institutionalized with the term Integrative Medicine. Dr. Andrew Weil may be resented by those in Alternative Medicine but we can look at it from two points of view.

Should things stay as they are, which is somewhat of a free for all in Alternative Medicine with a lack of scientific studies, or should those in Alternative Medicine with legitimate treatments and effective results be accepted by mainstream Conventional (Orthodox) Medicine?

Anti-Alternative Medicine Drs. Marcia Angell and Jerome Kassirer noted in a 1998 editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine: “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.”1

It’s okay to give the pharmaceutical companies a “free ride” (because they pay out billions of dollars per year to the NEJM and other medical journals and medical institutions). “It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride.”1 A lack of patent protection for herbs makes it impossible for manufacturers to be able to compete and ‘pay off'’, I mean… pay research dollars to the medical establishment leaders for their rightful share by doing expensive studies on herbs. “Free rides” can get very expensive.

The authors’ comments infer that only medicine works and not alternatives, this is blatantly untrue. Interesting though, in the same article these authors admit, “Of course, many treatments used in conventional medicine have not been rigorously tested either…”1

Maybe some of these pharmaceutical treatments “may or may not work”. Many long cherished pharmaceuticals that have been used for years without proper study have proven to be ineffective. As the saying goes ‘Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’.

For instance recently when the authorities finally got around to study cough and cold drug remedies, they were debunked. Less than 20% of conventional medical treatments have been properly tested. So, does this mean that the authorities should do testing on alternative treatments, yes but in a unbiased way, with only experienced practitioners that have expertise in the particular field.

Barry Bittman, MD., made an insightful comment at his website on medicines responsibility to patients, http://www.mind-body.org/herbal.htm: “However, I am also convinced that it is the medical profession’s responsibility to step up to the plate and champion the scientific testing of naturally-occurring substances that may be of benefit to mankind. We should work together to promote an integration of medical approaches that can best serve our patients.”

Thankfully, this has been started by the National Institutes of Health division, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) which is as it should be.

Drs. Angell and Dassirer say in the same Editorial that once Alternative Medicines have been proven to work they will be accepted as legitimate treatments. But, is this really so? Maybe this acceptance by the medical establishment is the real concern of those who ask the question: Is Alternative Medicine Dead? This will be looked at in a series of posts.

Stay tuned, folks for - Is Conventional Medicine Effective in Part 2 .

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Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Visit his website at Get A Better Life Today.
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1. Angell M, Kassirer J. Alternative Medicine— “The Risks Of Untested And Unregulated Remedies.” New England Journal of Medicine 339:839-841, 1998.