Jasmine Spearman

04/25/2014
Aging and Social Policy
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policies
Complementary and Alternative Medicine was introduced in the United States as a
therapy or healing modality to assist with the conventional medicine we use today, or to
be used on its own as alternative medicine. I chose this topic because I personally didnt
know much about these types of medicine especially because they arent widely used,
neither are they as regulated as any other drug or procedures done in the Country. The
interest in CAM therapies has been on a recent rise, but these types of medicines and
unorthodox systems of medical treatments has been around since the late 1700s; and by
mid 1800s the Americans chose from treatments such as herbal medicine, stem baths,
magnetic healing which was called hypnotism and in todays society some time can be
guided imagery, or mediation. Homeopathy was also used which derived from Greek,
origin meaning similar, suffering, which in hindsight means using treatments that are
like the disease. Osteopathy came about as a second generation to the first types of
alternative medicines in the 1870s along with naturopathy and chiropractic services in the
1890s, and much later massage and acupuncture, which was the most known and used in
the twentieth century. Even with the increase usage of CAM there has not been a serious
increase in funding on behalf of the insurance companies and medicare to support the
individuals that uses them.
Some of the confusion may be in what these medicines actually are and how they
differ from our current healthcare system medicine. What is considered Conventional, is
the treatment system we have in the U.S. According to the National Cancer Institute it is

a system in which medial doctors and other healthcare professionals, like nurses,
pharmacist, and therapists, who treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation,
surgery. Alternative medicine is, any range of medical therapies that are not regarded as
orthodox by the medical profession, such as herbalism homeopathy, and acupuncture.
Then there is complementary medicine which is incorporates both alternative and
conventional, and in todays medical system guided imagery and massage are regularly
used in some hospitals with pain management. The great aspect of alternative medicine is
that people who live with incurable disease or just resistant to conventional medical
treatment like people with AIDS, diabetes, cancer and other diseases. There has been a
transition from what we call infectious diseases to more chronic illnesses that if
maintained and treated a person can live for a long period of time, and speaking of people
living for a long time, recorded data shows that a great percent of older adults have used
or use some form of complementary or alternative medicine. With exception to some,
most people use CAM to treat and or prevent musculoskeletal conditions or other
conditions associated with chronic pain or pains that are reoccurring, but there wasnt an
association between the number of chronic diseases and CAM. Besides North America,
and countries like Europe and Australia has increasingly embraced the use of CAM by
using herbal medications to complement their standard health care, some without
consulting a health practitioner.
In America today there has been a recent increase in the amount of people using
alternative medicine, as stated in the survey report of 2010 done by AARP and the
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, nearly 40 percent of
Americans use health care approaches developed outside of conventional medicine.

Surprisingly in a time like this, where people always look for quick fixes to their
problems and this is the complete opposite. These results show that almost half of the
people that live in the U.S are using these types of medicine for many reasons that others
use conventional medicine. Some of these reasons are for preventative measures, which
77 out of 80 % of the respondents said was the reason, 73% said to help with pain and
53% said to supplement conventional medicine. All of the respondents from this survey
done by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, NIH, DHHS
was 50 years or older and discussed these reasons with their health care providers, and
interesting enough those who were college graduates or even those with some college
education. However, when megavitamin therapy and prayer specifically for health
reasons were included in the United States, 2002, persons with higher educational
attainment were more likely than persons with lower attainment levels to use CAM.
were the highest groups of people who used less overall of each type of complementary
and alternative medicine therapy. Stated in the same study, men were less likely than
women to use CAM, Blacks and Hispanics used less chiropractic and dietary
supplements, but they practiced on more personal levels then their Caucasian
counterparts, and those with a higher income, functional impairment, alcohol use, and
those who visit a physician more frequently, relates with a larger use of alternative
practitioners and those in the year of 2002 who had been hospitalized in the past year
were more likely than those who had not been in the hospital in the past year to use
complementary and alternative medicine.
In relevance to the older population the use of complementary and alternative
medicine is in great affect. With older adult ages 50-69 being rating in the top two percent

brackets for use of CAM; a large amount of these older adults having some long term
health issue, some minor and some a little more severe such as Alzheimers disease and
Cancer. The caregivers of those older adults with AD reports frequently using CAM
therapies to help with the persons memory and cognition, and the near 700 older adults
with diagnosis of cancer, the percentage of those using complementary medicine was
33%.
Previously, there were little to no policies concerning the use and practice of CAM in
the United States because it wasnt widely studied or funded by the health insurance
companies, or any other service for that matter. Even with the great influence that CAM
has globally on health care, there are big differences in policy, laws, and regulations from
country and country. In the book by Rebecca L. Ferrini and Armeda F. Ferrini, Health in
the Later Years, Drug companies seldom fund studies on herbs that are already available
without a prescription because, even if found to be effective, the companies dont realize
a financial gain(271), and this goes along with the view on herbal medicine or
supplements by the FDA in the United States.
Manufactures of these medicines cant make claims that relate to health and therefore
the FDA approval is not required, specifically because these are considered food
supplements. On the contrary, the Guidance for Industry on Complementary and
Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug
Administration says, a product that is used CAM therapy or practice of it may be subject
to regulation as a biological product , cosmetic, drug, or food under the Public Health
Service Act(in short the PHS Act). Also, under the Act is if a particular practice of CAM

is electronic and emits unnecessary exposure of people to radiation, say very similar to
chemotherapy then this procedure may be subject to additional requirements and it in
acupuncture needles are classified under class II medical devices. The reason stated
before, the FDA doesnt directly regulate CAM but if any of the devices, supplements,
and procedures somehow relate to sections under their policies and the PHS Act then they
will be reviewed just to ensure the safety of the general population. There was an
executive order in March 2000 that then made the, White House Commission on
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. This order was to address (1) research
to increase knowledge about CAM products, (2) the research would then serve as
education and training of the conventional health care practitioners in CAM. (3)both 1
and 2 would supply information for practice and products on CAM for health care
professionals.(4) Guidance regarding appropriate access to delivery of CAM. When it
comes to the health care practitioners education, the favoring of complementary medicine
has lead to the development of courses on the subject in some medical schools and the reevaluation of health insurance offered by the insurance companies. Ferrini mentioned in
their book that, health insurance companies now offer coverage for some CAM therapies
and Medicare covers on;y chiropractic and osteopathic services.
In European countries there are only a few with national policies for CAM besides
those for herbal and homeopathic medicines there are no regulations over these types of
medicine. The small regulation on CAM in Europe is in similar affects of the little
regulations on it in the U.S because there are varying definitions and categorizations of
the therapies so that makes regulation a challenge and so does the fact that this particular

medicine dont have much scientific studies, and no knowledge among the policy makers
that show the potential contributions of CAM to the overall health system. More than half
of the European Unions and the European Economic Area countries has some form of
regulation but these regulations have few variations amongst them all. According to the
European Public Health Alliance, complementary and alternative medicine has been
receiving a greater amount of attention from the Commission in recent years, with the
allocation to research and more activities within the institutions that includes informal
CAM interest groups within Parliament, and there has been consistent talk with CAM
stakeholders and as it is in the States some of their products are covered by current
legislation for both medication and food.
From the data and information presented in previous years and even today there has
been less attention and money allocated towards research and sources for complementary
and alternative medicine. With this increase in use amongst American citizen and
nationwide there should be more done in the healthcare system to ensure that what older
adults are participating in is working and helping them to some extent. Most of the recent
studies has concluded that a great portion of elders do use these alternative methods of
healing so approval from the FDA and other public health sectors should be near in the
future. It may be important to note that alternative practitioners spend more time on
average with their patients so this may be one factor influencing the positive effects that
come from these types of medicine.
Best said in Policy and Legal Framework, Traditional and complementary medicine
policy, Expanding the credibility and integration of TM/CAM will require developing
an evidence base for safety and efficacy, which means consolidating data from existing

national and international studies and supporting new research to fill evidence gaps.
What this statement makes clear is that in order to ensure the safety of all consumers of
complementary and alternative medicine the healthcare systems that are installed in our
government must forth a proficient effort to discover research from other countries using
this medicine, and along with the research already done they should make a constant
attempt to support new research on these modalities and funding them so that the studies
done can be more reliable scientifically. Once this done which in some ways it has
already started , then the use of these medicines can benefit the older population,
especially those with chronic illnesses. Most of all, the majority of populations would
widely use CAM as well, and speaking hopingly the increase use of CAM would then
lead to the more coverage by insurance companies and medicare.

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