Is there really a difference between Complementary and Alternative Medicine vs Conventional Medicine?

Many Americans already understand Complementary and Alternative Medicine basics, and even use them as opposed to Conventional Medicine in pursuit of health and well-being. Although alternative medicine is in general safer, costs less, and may be more effective, it has not however necessarily changed the healthcare system for the better yet.

We may have the FDA and drug industries with their so called medical regulation to thank for that. Here's my opinion and shpiel as to how Complementary Integrative Holistic medicine can be doing much better.

Organizations and establishments such as pharmaceutical companies, the American Medical Association, and the US FDA have a strangle hold, and bully all forms of effective, low cost alternative, complementary, integrative, holistic medicine. These establishments have a profitable monopoly position, connected to the US national interest. For progress to be made, this must change and their hold must be broken.

With Alternative Medicine, more studies and research has been and is being done than thought, but most are not as well known or publicized, or people are even mislead about them. Often safe and effective alternatives to medicine are represented as either useless or even harmful.

The Alternative field does not have as much funding as the pharmaceutical industry and companies which rely on their patents and have the resources to provide for major research. The US FDA is quick to support them and their causes, while at the same time causing undue pressure on the more natural fields who try to get, herbs, supplements, homeopathy and similar natural substances and therapies to be approved.

Controlled Clinical Trials a hallmark of conventional medicine limits competition in medicine and raises the costs of conventional medicine. Strict, well made clinical studies for many Alternative Medicine therapies have been lacking in the past, so the effectiveness and safety of different Alternative Medicine therapies are regarded as uncertain in the conventional sense.

Alternative Medicine's increasing research has begun to fill this so called knowledge hole by building a scientific evidence base about Alternative Medicine therapies—whether they are safe; and whether they work for the conditions for which people use them and, if so, how they work. Funding and support however, in comparison, are sorely lacking. A major allocation of funding and resources to alternative approaches is required that will promote and produce the best results.

In the quest to defeat major diseases such as cancer and AIDS, Western medicine has not produced positive results. After even fifty years of government funded research in the US, the rate of cancer has increased, while the mortality rate has remained the same.

Those trying to reverse those trends and even succeeding through more natural means, are persecuted by the pharmaceutical industry, as opposed to certain European countries for example like Germany where alternative medicine is not only succeeding but being government sponsored as well.

Many great technological advances have come about in the last 50 years including atomic energy and space flight, and major leaders in the US took great strides to help bring these about. Such other great unbiased leaders are required to be put in charge of fighting major diseases including cancer and AIDS which could help bring about the improvement of health care and lowered costs.

Many insurance companies in the US already cover certain forms of natural healing and Alternative Medicine. As well, certain states, locales, and their governments have already brought them into legislation and regulation. This is very much needed on a wider scale, so programs of active promotion, lobbying, marketing, and information dissemination need to be instituted on a state and more national level.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine organizations and centers need to be expanded majorly and their public funding increased for research into alternative therapies, especially for the treatment of cancer and other chronic, degenerative diseases.

The FDA must be stopped from protecting the mainstream medical field and from attacking alternative medicine and its many practitioners. Their procedures should be changed so that low cost natural compounds can be approved and allowed to make health claims.

Not just the expensive, synthetic, often harmful drugs which are patented. The FDA often does nothing about certain violations from companies, especially if they are significant players in the pharmaceutical or drug industry.

Polluting our planet, air, water, food, and environment with chemicals and pollutants must be stopped. The many studies showing how these pollutants cause cancer must be brought to light, and allowed to be published. Especially by those who profit from their use.

A major joining of both Conventional and Alternative Medicine worlds is presently needed; primary intervention and emergency care, modern technologies and techniques, as well as a holistic approach to health which will address the whole person, especially when coming to chronic issues.

It must be stressed, that there exist actual complete systems of medicine, which are entire systems containing theory and practice having evolved over time in different areas and cultures apart from conventional modern medicine. Examples may be Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda from India. Other more modern systems that have developed in the past few centuries include Homeopathy and Naturopathy.

Our most valuable asset is our health and well being. It is our G-d given gift and right as individuals. In a country such as the US whose traditions are based on a person's freedoms, people should at the very least have the right to choose what kind of care and health approach they best wish to use.