University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine establishes Chair in Integrative Medicine

[AussieNeil]

Be interesting to see what becomes of this...

"The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney has just announced A$1.3 of funding from Blackmores, the complementary medicine manufacturer, for a Chair in Integrative Medicine (a blending of evidence-based conventional and complementary medicine)." writes Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health at University of Sydney.

"Nearly a quarter of Australians with chronic health problems use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and the bewildering range and often changing nature of these products are often of unknown efficacy, and may have important adverse or beneficial interactions with prescribed medicines.

Still, more of the “worried well” regularly use unnecessary vitamins and other dietary supplements, often achieving little other than the generation of expensive urine in consumers and handsome profits in manufacturers.

:

:

Conventional medicines (so-called “ethical pharmaceuticals”) have to pass through onerous regulatory hurdles to prove both safety and efficacy. With the exception of the United States and New Zealand, prescribed medicines cannot be advertised directly to consumers. While the complementary and alternative medicine industry has to satisfy concerns about safety and toxicity, it does not have to satisfy standards of efficacy and can promote useless products in often quasi-mystical and vague language."

Full article and some interesting comments:

theconversation.com/what-if...

Neil