Alternative health should feature in healthcare reform

Reported June 04, 2010

President Obama came to power promising to reform the ailing healthcare system, and proponents of alternative medicine call on his administration to treat their industry on par with traditional medicine.

According to the editorial in the January issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine the reform should take into consideration treatments and therapies that rely on evidence-based methods of prevention, chiropractics, and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Government policies should encourage a shift in health research budgets "away from the longstanding emphasis on single intervention therapeutics and toward multifactorial integrative and whole-systems approaches," writes Dr Daniel Redwood, associate professor at Cleveland Chiropractic College in Kansas City.

He adds, "There is no lack of scientific evidence for these approaches; what is lacking is a deep appreciation of their importance and the will to teach these to the patients who so desperately need them."

Redwood stresses the need to acknowledge that chiropractic services provide essential health benefits, and as such they should be covered by medical insurance and reimbursed.