Integrative medicine
Integrative medicine or integrative health is a neologism coined by practitioners to describe the combination of practices and methods of alternative medicine with conventional medicine.[1][2][3] Some universities and hospitals have integrative-medicine departments.[3]
[edit] Criticism
Because integrative medicine attempts to merge evidence-based medicine with alternative medical techniques, as well as partially focusing treatment on the "spiritual", it is not without controversy. Accordingly, it receives the same types of criticisms that are directed at alternative medicine.[4][5]
Dr. Arnold S. Relman, editor in chief emeritus of The New England Journal of Medicine wrote:
There are not two kinds of medicine, one conventional and the other unconventional, that can be practiced jointly in a new kind of 'integrative medicine.' Nor, as Andrew Weil and his friends also would have us believe, are there two kinds of thinking, or two ways to find out which treatments work and which do not. In the best kind of medical practice, all proposed treatments must be tested objectively. In the end, there will only be treatments that pass that test and those that do not, those that are proven worthwhile and those that are not. Can there be any reasonable 'alternative'?[6]
Speaking of government funding studies of integrating alternative medicine techniques into the mainstream, Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist at Yale School of Medicine, wrote that it "is used to lend an appearance of legitimacy to treatments that are not legitimate." Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine says, "It's a new name for snake oil."[5]
Organisations advocating integrative medicine in the UK have been criticised for promoting unproven complementary treatments.[1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b James May (12 July 2011). "College of Medicine: What is integrative health?". British Medical Journal 343: d4372. doi:10.1136/bmj.d4372. PMID 21750063. http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4372.full.
- ^ What Is Complementary and Alternative Medicine? National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. (Accessed 20 February 2011
- ^ a b Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine
- ^ The "integration" of pseudoscience into medicine continues apace
- ^ a b Brown, David (17 March 2009). "Scientists Speak Out Against Federal Funds for Research on Alternative Medicine". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/16/AR2009031602139.html.
- ^ Arnold S. Relman. A trip to Stonesville. The New Republic, Dec 14, 1998.
