Talk:Complementary and alternative medicine

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I am archiving this article and its talk page and starting us over

Here goes. For future reference only, here is:

• Complementary_and_alternative_medicine/article_archive
• Talk:Complementary_and_alternative_medicine/archive.

--Pat Palmer

What I've done

• I would recommend giving this article a simple name, maybe just "Alternative medicine"
• I would recommend moving debates to specific subtopics, such as representing, on an acupuncture article, the perceived arguments for and against, specifically, acupuncture
• I am moving Howard's comments to my talk page, for now, because he made them before I had finished this archiving action; he may choose to come back here if he wishes, I just want to give others a chance to think first

--Pat Palmer

Countersuggestion: could everyone look at integrative medicine and see if it already is moving in the right direction?

Also, while it's very early, look at phytomedicine and see if it has the flavor of specific argument. It may not yet have enough detail; there are, for example, a few plant-derived remedies that show evidence of efficacy. With the particular regulatory and economic structure in the U.S., there's no incentive to do full studies and standardization for indications and warnings. Germany, however, has a system that is much friendlier to a combination of scientific and traditional approaches. China has yet another. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Howard, I will go look soon as I get time. THanks!Pat Palmer 00:07, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Complementary

I find that I am bothered by the term "complementary". Sorry, it's an OPINION as to whether an unofficial health approach is complementary or not. It is not an opinion as to whether an approach is "alternative" (i.e., "unofficial" or "not necessarily approved"). Therefore, I strongly recommend renaming this article back to simply "alternative medicine".

This article should, in my opinion, describe the idea that there are regulating authorities, and that anything they do not "approve" is "alternative" (even if it is not banned, though some alternatives ARE banned). The issue of whether patients would be better off pursuing both official therapies and alternative therapies is up for dispute. I don't think any sensible person would rule out investigation, or at least considering the idea of, alternatives.

But, calling this article "Complementary" (as well as "alternative") implies that alternative therapies and approaches ARE always helpful, and that is open to question in every single case. Simply renaming this article makes it easier to keep it merely descriptive, and helps us keep separate the philosophical questions such as, 1) who gets to be the police of what's "official", 2) what should be "banned" or downright "illegal", 3) whether unblessed approaches have value or not. All these are really interesting and important questions, but no one has been able to produce a definitive answer for them in thousands of years, and we are not going to be able to agree on the answer in CZ either. We can only agree on the questions.