Complementary and alternative medicine: what the NHS should be funding?

摘要

Chronically embedded in the tension between Royal patronage and scientific reasoning, the UK debate about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is heating up. Currently the Academy of Medical Sciences is developing a ‘CAM policy paper’, the King's Fund is trying to reach a ‘consensus on appropriate research methods’ in CAM, the Arthritis Research Campaign is ‘reviewing the role of CAM in the management of rheumatic diseases’, and the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Health are about to publish guidelines on the role of CAM in mental health. In November 2007, the Lancet (again) published several critical comments on homeopathy and, in December 2007, the government's most senior scientist, Sir David King, warned that homeopathy ‘is a risk to the population’.1 Patients are being systematically misled2 and remain confused: of the 21 questions most frequently asked by consumers to NHS Direct, six related to CAM.3 Even GPs are often uncertain how to advise their patients, and decision makers or regulators struggle when forced to decide what the NHS should pay for.