Complementary And Alternative Medicine And The Law

Explores the legal issues that health care providers, institutions, and regulators confront as they contemplate integrating complementary and alternative medicine into mainstream U.S. health care. A third of all Americans use complementary and alternative medicine—including chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, nutritional and herbal treatments, and massage therapy—even when their insurance does not cover it and they have to pay for such treatments themselves. Nearly a third of U.S. medical schools offer courses on complementary and alternative therapies. Congress has created an Office of Alternative Medicine within the National Institutes of Health, and federal and state lawmakers have introduced legislation authorizing widespread use of such therapies. These institutional and legislative developments, argues Michael H. Cohen, express a paradigm shift to a broader, more inclusive vision of health care than conventional medicine admits. Cohen explores the legal issues that health care providers (both conventional and alternative), institutions, and regulators confront as they contemplate integrating complementary and alternative medicine into mainstream U.S. health care. Challenging traditional ways of thinking about health, disease, and the role of law in regulating health, Cohen begins by defining complementary and alternative medicine and then places the regulation of orthodox and alternative health care in historical context. He next examines the legal ramifications of complementary and alternative medicine, including state medical licensing laws, legislative limitations on authorized practice, malpractice liability, food and drug laws, professional disciplinary issues, and third-party reimbursement. The final chapter provides a framework for thinking about the possible evolution of the regulatory structure. This book is the first to set forth the emerging moral and legal authority on which the safe and effective practice of alternative health care can rest. It further suggests how regulatory structures might develop to support a comprehensive, holistic, and balanced approach to health, one that permits integration of orthodox medicine with complementary and alternative medicine, while continuing to protect patients from fraudulent and dangerous treatments.

This textbook introduces students to the myriad of laws that govern the practice of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and, by doing so, provides a general health law survey as well. After broadly describing CAM and the ongoing tension between CAM and conventional medicine, the book covers traditional health law basics through the lens of CAM regulation and practice. Medical licensure and scope of practice, malpractice, informed consent, Food and Drug Administration regulation of dietary supplements, and antitrust are each addressed. The authors close by examining new innovations in CAM regulation. News articles, government reports, excerpts from literature, and real life problems (as well as critical cases and statutes) are used throughout the text to examine the intersection between CAM and the law. Through use of this approach, the text is accessible not only to law students but to graduate students in public health and other professionals who seek to learn more about this burgeoning field.

Integration of complementary and alternative medicine therapies (CAM) with conventional medicine is occurring in hospitals and physicians offices, health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are covering CAM therapies, insurance coverage for CAM is increasing, and integrative medicine centers and clinics are being established, many with close ties to medical schools and teaching hospitals. In determining what care to provide, the goal should be comprehensive care that uses the best scientific evidence available regarding benefits and harm, encourages a focus on healing, recognizes the importance of compassion and caring, emphasizes the centrality of relationship-based care, encourages patients to share in decision making about therapeutic options, and promotes choices in care that can include complementary therapies where appropriate. Numerous approaches to delivering integrative medicine have evolved. Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the United States identifies an urgent need for health systems research that focuses on identifying the elements of these models, the outcomes of care delivered in these models, and whether these models are cost-effective when compared to conventional practice settings. It outlines areas of research in convention and CAM therapies, ways of integrating these therapies, development of curriculum that provides further education to health professionals, and an amendment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act to improve quality, accurate labeling, research into use of supplements, incentives for privately funded research into their efficacy, and consumer protection against all potential hazards.

This new edition includes a discussion of the Privacy Act and national privacy principles now applicable to all complementary and alternative medicine practitioners; discussion of the recently passed civil liability legislation in NSW; additional sections on sexual harassment and work place health and safety, and much more.

The provision and use of traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has been growing globally over the last 40 years. As CAM develops alongside - and sometimes integrates with - conventional medicine, this handbook provides the first major overview of its regulation and professionalization from social science and legal perspectives. The Routledge Handbook of Complementary and Alternative Medicine draws on historical and international comparative research to provide a rigorous and thematic examination of the field. It argues that many popular and policy debates are stuck in a polarized and largely asocial discourse, and that interdisciplinary social science perspectives, theorising diversity in the field, provide a much more robust evidence base for policy and practice in the field. Divided into four sections, the handbook covers: analytical frameworks power, professions and health spaces risk and regulation perspectives for the future. This important volume will interest social science and legal scholars researching complementary and alternative medicine, professional identify and health care regulation, as well as historians and health policymakers and regulators.

Various types of traditional medicine and other medical practices referred to as complementary or alternative medicine are increasingly used in both developing and developed countries, and the regulatory frameworks established vary considerably. This publication reviews information on their legal status in 123 countries, and is intended to facilitate the development of legal frameworks and sharing of experience between countries. The review will be useful not only to policy makers, but also to researchers, universities, the public, insurance companies and pharmaceutical industries.

A pioneering local textbook covering curriculum requirements for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) students. Legal, ethical, and professional practice issues are essential curriculum components of all Complementary and Alternative Medicine courses. Statutory bodies, professional associations, educational institutions and accreditation authorities require the incorporation of such content into CAM study. This has created the need for a definitive guide written specifically for Australian students according to CAM curriculum requirements. Essentials of Law, Ethics and Professional Issues for CAM is the only local textbook which deals comprehensively with legal, ethical and professional practice issues for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) students. This timely medical text takes a multidisciplinary approach, and is written by authors who are both academics and practitioners, with contributing authors for individual CAM modalities. Essentials of Law, Ethics and Professional Issues for CAM is ideal for students, trainees and even practitioners in various modalities, including naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, massage, osteopathy, chiropractic and western herbal medicine. presents a combined solution for professional practice courses which cover legal, ethical and professional practice considerations is the only local book to address these issues for modalities considered by COAG for regulation and registration designed to meet the needs of CAM students at Diploma, Bachelor and Coursework Masters levels case studies, alert boxes, tips and explanations contained throughout includes integrative practice considerations

The growth of complementary medicine over the past decade has been accompanied by calls for greater regulation. To date, discussions on regulation have confined themselves to the parameters set by orthodox medicine, and a result, critical issues which need to be more publicly aired have beenoverlooked. The first book to address this increasingly important topics, Complementary Medicine and the Law is a timely response to this need. The authors explore the way in which the law presently affects the practice of complementary medicine. At the heart of the book is a challenging of thenotion that the legal and regulatory mechanisms which govern orthodox medicine form an appropriate model for the regulation of most complementary therapies. The patient-centred, holistic approach central to the theory and practice of many complementary therapies presents a unique problem for thelaw: the highly individualised, more intuitive, whole-person approach of complementary medicine is not amenable to the quantification and certainty required by the law. The authors argue that only by implementing a more dynamic form of ethics-directed regulation can the consumer be protectedwithout sacrificing the unique contribution that complementary medicine has to make.