Alternative Medicine Online

The American Holistic Health Association Complete Guide to Alternative Medicine

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Modern Americans are facing a new era of unprecedented health challenges such as longevity, chronic disease, and reactions to toxic drug therapies. Dissatisfied with conventional treatment, millions are now turning to alternative medicines. In offeri...

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Complementary and Alternative Treatments in Mental Health Care

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The widespread use of nonconventional treatments, or complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), and the increasing evidence supporting their therapeutic benefits call for a concerted scientific effort to integrate treatments that work into mainstream medicines.

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Herbal Medicine, Healing, and Cancer

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More and more people who have been diagnosed with cancer or related illnesses embrace alternative medicines, and seek out holistic practitioners who use vitamins, herbs, nutrition, homeopathy, and acupuncture to treat the disease. This long-aw...

Merchant: Overstock Books

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Alternative medicine broadly describes methods and practices used in place of, or in addition to, conventional medical treatments. The precise scope of alternative medicine is a matter of some debate and depends to a great extent on the definition of "conventional medicine." Many practitioners regard the distinction as false, preferring "good medicine" (which demonstrably works) and "bad medicine." Richard Dawkins, professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, notes that alternative medicine is defined as that set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested or consistently fail tests.

The debate on alternative medicine is complicated further by the diversity of treatments that are categorized as "alternative." These include practices that incorporate spiritual, metaphysical, or religious underpinnings; non-European medical traditions; newly developed approaches to healing; and a number of others. Proponents of one class of alternative medicine may reject others.

Detractors of alternative medicine may also define it as "diagnosis, treatment, or therapy which can be provided legally by persons who are not licensed to diagnose and treat illness," although some medical doctors find value using alternative therapies in the practice of "complementary medicine."

Many in the scientific community define alternative medicine as any treatment, the efficacy and safety of which has not been verified through peer-reviewed, controlled studies. This form of definition is not based on political views, turf protection, or economic interests, but hinges exclusively on questions of effectiveness and safety. It is thus possible for a method to change categories in either direction, based on increased knowledge of its effectiveness or lack thereof.

Some techniques and therapies once considered to be "alternative", have - upon being proven to be effective - been accepted into mainstream medicine.

The opposite is equally true, with methods once thought to be effective being dropped when it has been discovered that their only effect was because of the placebo effect, or when their side effects were found to result in an unfavorable safety-to-benefit ratio.

Various advocates and critics of alternative therapies believe that the term "alternative medicine" is misleading. Some advocates believe that Western therapies are the "alternative" in that they were preceded by traditional therapies. Others believe that the term was invented by advocates of "allopathic" medicine in an attempt to discredit natural therapies quackpotwatch.org (external). Critics of alternative therapies assert that they are not effective and consequently are not a legitimate alternative to conventional medicine. Richard Dawkins, professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, defines alternative medicine as "that set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested or consistently fail tests" (See Diamond 2003). Many on both sides believe that alternative therapies can become accepted as conventional medicine if they are scientifically proven to be effective.

Alternative Medicine