April 21, 2008 mailing - Issue #45
April 21, 2008
Bob Sager,
MD wanted integrative MD questions in the CodeBlueNow! voter surveys
... Wellpoint fraud expert Howard Levinson, DC comments on the state of
managed care ... Former holisitic nurses association leader Sonja
Simpson, RN, AHN-BC believes commentator Beth Wooton, ND was spot on
regarding practitioner education ...
Researcher Lyn Freeman, PhD has some suggestions about new routes to
project funding that are not NCCAM dependent ... Lisa Yater, LCSW, on
how the structure of conventional care delivery limits the opportunity
for inclusion. More ...
April 21, 2008
Two individuals
who have played significant roles in different areas of the integrative
care universe died recently. Robert (Bob) Timberlake was a leader in
jump-starting the re-emergence of naturopathic medicine, and
particularly its expansion of new licensing of naturopathic physicians
in the 1990s, serving later in a leadership capacity with Vital
Nutrients, a quality leader in natural products. He was a valued
colleague and friend ... Steve Gorman, founder of Alternative Health
Insurance Services, began talking about, and dreaming up ways to
expand, coverage of alternative medicine services over two decades ago.
Adviser Michael Levin offers appreciation for Gorman's life. More ...
April 21, 2008
Breakthrough:
American Medical Student Association formally recognizes the
Naturopathic Medical Student Association as an affiliate ... Fønnebø to propose a "peace treaty" in "research battleground" at May 18 SPARC meeting ... Harvard
integrative clinic featured ... UCLA program offers seven approaches to
back pain in consumer-focused event ... Formerly chiropractic-only
schools gain recognition for AOM and ND programs ... Yale's kick-off
event draws overflow crowd ... NIH to have May Yoga week ... U Mass
natural products Master's degree now largely internet-based ... BU and
Northwestern Feinberg medical schools bring to 41 the members of the Consortium of
Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine ... Master's in
Integrative Health in development for 2008 at National University, San
Diego. More ...
April, 15, 2008
Guest
writer Beth Clay's mention of homeopathy and her challenging of the
credentials of a top NIH NCCAM deputy, Jack Killen, MD, provoked strong
responses. I corresponded multiple times with an anonymous scientist
who was livid with the Integrator and Clay yet did not want his comments
published, even anonymously. I capture some of the exchange, as I
believe there may be many others who agree. Entrepreneur Taylor Walsh
wonders if the challenges to Killen are merited. Consultant David
Matteson, MPH credits the Integrator (and Clay) for the
discussion. Finally, author and homeopath Dana Ullman, MPH, details a
rebuttal to Killen's view, as quoted in Newsweek, that there is "no condition for which homeopathy has been proven to be an effective
treatment." More ...
April 15, 2008
Integrator columnist
Michael Levin, founder of Health Business Strategies, is a long-time
promoter of integrative medicine strategies that challenge the often
costly, unsafe and quality of life-damaging interventions promoted by
Big Pharma. So when Levin, who has been an executive with both pharmaceutical
and dietary supplement firms, saw the new AARP report on drug price
trends pre and post the implementation of the Medicare Drug Benefit, he
analyzed it both for what Pharma had already extracted, and for what
integrative medicine might. Here is Levin's brief report and view of
opportunities. More ...
April 15, 2008
When Yale University School of Medicine
recently chose to bring a chiropractor into their first Integrative Medicine
Symposium, Anthony Lisi, DC was the chosen presenter. As director of the
Veterans Health Administration's Chiropractic Service, Lisi sits in the
hot-seat for the most significant complementary and alternative healthcare
integration effort nationwide. To Lisi's account, practitioner-to-practitioner
relationships and patient reports are overcoming the deep reluctance which
greeted this Congressionally-mandated program. The Integrator caught up
with Lisi to learn more about this pioneering initiative. More ...
April 5, 2008 mailing - Issue #44
April 5, 2008
When this interview with Stephen Bolles, DC, was first published in the Integrator two
years ago, United Healthcare asked that it be pulled. The issue was not
with facts. United was officially upset that Bolles hadn't gone through
channels to get the information approved - which approval would not
have come, as he later learned. Bolles, a longtime colleague who was
then a senior director for consumer health initiatives with United,
told me after the interview was first published that United was
applying extreme pressure and that he felt his job was at stake. I
clicked the article off. Bolles and United have since parted and the
information in the interview remains useful although United has gone in
some different directions since our interview. I spoke with Bolles
recently when he wrote his excellent response to the recent "cultural
authority" piece. He cleared me to "republish" it. Enjoy this look at
something that stirred up United's executives enough to threaten an
employee. More ...
April 5, 2008
[From my Integrative Practitioner Online column]
"I have always viewed work in healthcare “integration” as deeply akin
to the effort to racially integrate the culture we inhabit. So I was riveted when Barack Obama addressed the nation with a speech which was, as the Daily Show’s
Jon Stewart put it, the first time “a prominent politician spoke to
Americans about race, as though they were adults.” I listened as a
child of parents who took me on Open Housing marches in Seattle 45
years ago. I also listened from within my 25 years of involvement with
thousands of you in the plodding advancement of the “integration” of
health care disciplines and practices. The parallels are profound.
Between the dominant school of medicine and any healing-oriented, whole
person approach, there
exists a huge cultural and economic chasm." More ...
April 5, 2008
Bravo to
Marja Verhoef, PhD and her team with the Canadian Interdisciplinary
Network for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research (IN-CAM)!
On March 31, 2008, IN-CAM unveiled the IN-CAM Outcomes Database. The
project, funded through the
Lotte & John Hecht Memorial Foundation, brings together a huge set
of instruments with which practitioners and researchers can explore
their outcomes. Good results have been reported in generic levitra.While one might quibble with the non-inclusion of
presenteeism and economic indicators, this database should become the
center of the universe for the most productive research in
complementary and integrative medicine. Ever wonder why it is leaders
from Canada and not the United States who have taken the lead in this
work? More ...
March 29, 2008
Early in March,
I received an invite from Josephine Briggs, MD, the incoming director
of the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
(NCCAM) to meet with her at the NIH. I had forwarded my Open Letter and
some of the comments from readers and shared that I wouldn't be far
from Bethesda on other business in mid-March and would look forward to
a chance to meet. Briggs made time. We met on Friday, March 14, 2008.
Here is a report from that meeting plus some input from my Integrator advisers. More ...
March 29, 2008
My reflections on
the theme of "cultural authority," with which the chiropractic
profession is wrestling - in its relationship both to conventional
medicine and the "CAM"- stimulated a half-dozen thoughtful
responses. Stephen Perle, DC, MD, focuses on the
idea of chiropractic as a "limbo profession." James Winterstein, DC,
wonders if naturopathic medicine and acupuncture and Oriental medicine
are easier for conventional medicine to embrace because their more unusual theories
are less known. William Wulsin, ND, LAc, MPH (cand.) offers a historic,
and hopeful perspective. Lou Sportelli, DC, muses on how a person's
positive experience of a chiropractor will not necessarily translate
into positive views of chiropractic. Finally, Stephen Bolles, DC,
concludes some forthright commentary with a view that "perhaps
cultural integrity and (forgive me) authenticity require some serious
attention at this point in our development." Excellent perspectives
with resonance for all emerging fields. More ...
March 20, 2008 mailing - Issue #43March 20, 2008
3 Voices on NCCAM's Transition: Mind-body Pioneer Achterberg, AOM Student and Anonymous Academic Researcher
Here are three additional comments on Integrator
dialogue on the selection of the new NCCAM director, Josephine Briggs,
MD: mind-body pioneer Jeannie Achterberg, PhD, shares some professional
frustration with NCCAM priorities; acupuncture and Oriental medicine
student Natalie Schwehr takes me to task for polarizing the discussion;
and an anonymous academic medicine-based researcher opines on the
wisdom of commenting fully about differences with the status quo since
securing NCCAM funds is the anchor for the career. Briggs is actively
educating herself. But will those with whom she interviews speak
freely, and with deep connection to the clinicians in the field? More ...
March 20, 2008
Karen Lawson,
MD, on the value of functional medicine for opening conventional MDs to
integrative practice; educator Beth Wooten Pimental, ND, on
educational issues begged by the column by Marty Rossman, MD; Linda
Bark, RN, notes the absence of integral nursing in the upcoming IHPM
employer conference; James Winterstein, DC, gives kudos to acupuncture
physician James Saylor, AP, for comments on patient -focused care;
Jacob Schor, ND, FABNO on a previous reference of Winterstein to what
is properly called the "whole Megillah;" CAM entrepreneur Taylor Walsh
fills out the Integrator Top 10 with an excellent post; and then, non-typical Integrator fare from adviser Michael Levin and Jessica Noggle, PhD, RYT regarding emerging research in contamination of our water supply. More ...
March 20, 2008
The theme this year for the Association of Chiropractic Colleges and Research Agenda Conference (ACC-RAC) meeting was "cultural authority."
From March 13-15, 2008, I had a chance to attend, for the first time,
and present at this gathering of 350 educators, researchers, policy
leaders and administrators principally based in accredited chiropractic
colleges and research institutions. Despite advances on many fronts, "cultural authority" has
been an elusive gold ring that the chiropractic has been pursuing in
recent years. The positioning around "CAM" factors in that pursuit. Here are some reflections on what I saw and heard on this
theme as I moved through the conference. More ...
March 18, 2008
Shortly after former NIH staff member Beth Clay read the Integrator open
letter regarding NCCAM leadership with no experience in complementary
and integrative medicine, Clay was startled by a statement in a Newsweek article.
NCCAM's acting deputy director Jack Killen, MD, described the science
behind homeopathy in terms that Clay believes run "contrary to the
actual evidence." Clay looked into Killen's background and found that
his leadership of an AIDs research project in Africa was the subject of a very critical NIH report. NCCAM's acting #2 also had no background in complementary and integrative medicine. Clay's
guest article, part investigative journalism, part commentary, raises
additional questions about the fitness of NCCAM's staff to provide
optimal leadership for exploring the field. I sent the article to NCCAM
for comment prior to publication; the NCCAM response is printed below
Clay's article. More ...
March 18, 2008
Three years ago, Kauley Jones, vice president
for sales and marketing Immunolabs, a vendor of diagnostic testing services to integrative
practitioners, began educating herself to the
economic “plight of employers” regarding health-related costs and the potential
link to integrative practice. She was stimulated to do so by her integrative practitioner clients. Jones
learned that the most significant cost of poor employee health is not
medical costs but something employers call “presenteeism” – basically,
health-related productivity issues. Jones began creating a multi-year
Immunolabs initiative to support integrative physicians who wish to
learn the language and culture that will allow them to serve “this
(other) stakeholder which has a vested interest in health.” More ...
March 12, 2008
Two
healthcare surveys of voters, in Iowa and Washington state, by the
independent not-for-profit, CodeBlueNow! (CBN) offer a rare chance to
look at differences in response by party affiliation on key prevention
and complementary and integrative healthcare questions. CBN, which
surveyed on a wide array of health reform topics, included one question
on whether respondents agreed that acupuncturists, chiropractors,
naturopathic physicians and other licensed practitioners should be in
core, covered benefits. Another looked at whether health care should focus on prevention "instead of on high technology cures." Here are responses by party affiliation. More ...
March 12, 2008
These conferences all offer a little something
different. The AHA/Health Forum's 6th Integrative Medicine for
Healthcare Organizations presents hospital best practices enlivened by
comments from major healthcare taking heads, including the successful
model at Woodwinds campus led by Northwestern Health Sciences University; Yale's IM program offers its kick-off conference; Holistic Primary Care
gets into conferencing by focusing on the business of integrative
practice success; and, for those who might wish to learn about the
metrics and language for partnering with a stakeholder interested in
health creation, the Institute for Health and Productivity Management's
offers both immersion in employer-think and and employer-focused
complementary, alternative and integrative medicine track. More ...
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