background resources in PDF |
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some CAM/IM publication links |
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Brief Notes, Links & Personnel News - July 6, 2006 |
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Written by John Weeks
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Brief Notes, Links and Personnel News -- July 6, 2006
 Longtime chiropractic leader Jerry mcAndrews, DC
Jerry McAndrews, DC, long-time leader of the chiropractic profession, died last month at 73. I personally had the chance to benefit from his expertise when Jerry served as an advisor to the Integrator for the Business of Alternative Medicine. McAndrews served chiropractic in a dozen leadership roles - spanning professional, educational and research action. Notable from the broader integration perspective was McAndrews work as part of the leadership team for the American Chiropractic Association in its decade-long, successful anti-trust lawsuit in the 1980s against American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association. The suit forced the conventional medical industry to back off their most egregious exclusionary practices, as well as routine charges of quackery and fraud against all natural health care disciplines. A tribute to McAndrews as advisor to IBN&R sponsor NCMIC Group, written by his longtime associate Louis Sportelli, DC, is posted on the NCMIC site ...
 Marsha Handel, MLS
Marsha Handel, MLS, information and education coordinator with the New York Beth Israel Center for Health and Healing recently received a National Library of Medicine
(NLM) grant to develop online, multi-media, Spanish/English modules
on integrative approaches to diabetes/obesity, chronic pain and
cardivascular diseases. Handle wished to let others know that the NLM
may be a source of project funding ... Dana Ullman, MPH Dana Ullman, MPH
,
the honorary ambassador for homeopathy to the rest of the universe, is
working on what he calls "the most important project of (his) life." The project is a
book which will promote the use of infinitesimal doses by showing
how homeopathic medicines have been favored by scores of peacemakers, personalities, sports
figures and other historic figures who have shaped life in large ways. Ullman recently celebrated the 30-year anniversary of his arrest in California for practicing (homeopathic) medicine without a license. He transformed that very public event into a position as an advisor to California on homeopathic regulation. Ullman works through Homeopathic Educational Services ...
Association News: AHNA/AHMA, Nat'l Detox, AOM Accreditation, HerbDay
The historic joint conference of the American Holistic Medical Association and the American Holistic Nursing Association drew upwards of 800 souls to Minnesota's Twin Cities earlier this month according to AHMA past-president Karen Lawson, MD, and AHNA president Carla Mariano, RN, EdD, AHN-C. Attendees reportedly urged that the mixed convening happen again. Present commitments of both organizations to conference place and time for 2007 means that 2008 will be the first opportunity to jointly meet again. Kudos to the two associations for this step in modeling physician-nurse collaboration ... The National Acupuncture Detoxification Association has a new president in Ken Carter, MD Ken Carter, MD, NADA president
. NADA's auricular acupuncture protocols for treating addiction and mental disorders are now in use in over 500 locations around the world ...
Accreditation agency recognition by the federal government has been a battle ground in advancement for the AOM, DC and ND professions. To many in AOM, the news was good when an application for US Department of Education recognition of a splinter-group AOM accrediting body, the National Oriental Medicine Accrediting Agency, was withdrawn recently. A 70 page DoE report found 436 violation of guidelines and recommended against recognition of the group. The Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine is among those which opposed the recognition. Meantime, the presently-recognized Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine was granted a five year extension by the US DoE.
Long-time herb industry leader Linda LeMole has brought to my attention the work of five organizations to promote a national HerbDay 2006. The "coordinated series of independently-produced public educational events" is slated for October 14. The sponsoring organizations are the American Botanical Council, American Herbal Products Association, American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, American Herbalists Guild and United Plant Savers. The public event is meant to stimulate awareness and choice around the diverse uses and benefits of herbs and herbalism.
Some Follow-up: Patient-Centered Care, Disparity Reduction, Integative Pharmacy
Medical errors and Patient-cented Care
In response to the suggestion of Milt Hammerly, MD, that patient centered care as a direction for hospitals trying to get out of the mire of medical deaths, futurist Clem Bezold, PhD, sent a link to a report which his Institute for Alternative Futures, developed for the the Picker Institute entitled Patient-Centered Care: Scenarios, Vision, Goals and Next Steps. The Picker Institute focuses solely on advancing patient-centered care.
CAM and Disparity Reducation
In other recent news, the Disparity Reducing Advances Project of Bezold's Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) featured in IBN&R #1, has picked up some project partners with an interest in IAF's charge to explore the role of CAM-IM in disparity reduction. Planetree and the Samueli Institute for Information Biology are among the 26 "DRA Partners." However, the DRA Project team in a meeting last spring did not choose to prioritize the "use of community providers in complementary health modalities to promote health" among their top 3 directions. Supporting "community focused approaches to prevention" was selected as a top priority, along with some bio-moniotoring initiatives. IAF's work coNtinues to distinguish itself by bringing together low-tech and high tech approaches. IBN&R readers will be interested to know that the Institute for Health Improvement, leader of the hospital-based effort to prevent medical deaths, is also among the DRA Partners.
Integrative Pharmacy
A recent short IBN&R note on Elephant Pharmacy provoked a response from another West Coast "integrative pharmacy," Pharmaca. The growing, West coast firm, is actively recruiting licensed acupuncturists, naturopathic physicians, homeopaths, nutritionists, herbalists and other natural health providers for employment. Pharmaca claims its approach is "based on a traditional European-style pharmacy where prepscription medicines and natural medicines have always existed side-by-side ..."
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