Integrative Medicine, Complementary and Alternative Health and Medicine Round-up #90: April 2015
Written by John Weeks
Integrative Medicine, Complementary and Alternative Health and Medicine Round-up #90: April 2015
Policy -Comment Period until June 22: FDA Calls for Comments and Announces April
20-21 Hearing on Regulation of Homeopathics -Comment Period until May 20: HHS
Publishes DRAFT National Plan for Pain Care
Publishes paper on economic challenges in IM
Economics -Column Available: "Perverse Incentives and the Triple
Aim: Overcoming the Troubled Path to Economic Integration for Integrative
Medicine and Health" Clinical
Erik Goldman's Fascinating
Portrait, for FON Consulting, of the Cleveland Clinic's Integrative Program
Quick Links to
Integrative Medicine News in Medical Systems and Communities: March 2015 Research
-Briggs Blast
Over-Prescribing of Opioids and Announces NCCIH Initiative to Explore
"Misplaced Fear" of Drug-Botanical Interactions
-$3-million Grant to Ottawa Integrative Center for "Real World" Look at Outcomes
of Advanced Integrative Oncology
-Regarding Dugald Seely,
Polarization-based Medicine Bloggers, and the Integrative "Mud Smudge of
Courage"
-AANP President Pournadeali's
Letter to NCCIH Requesting Increased Licensed Complementary and Integrative
Practitioners on Advisory Council
-Award of $415,000 Supports Research on Via CCNM and Toronto's Brampton Hospital
on Naturopathic Care for Type 2 Diabetes Academics
-Bastyr President
Dan Church, PhD: The Natural Medicine
Journal's Candid Exit Interview after His 10 Years at the Helm
-Naturopathic
Mothership NCNM to Add Bachelors' Programs to Expanding Graduate Offerings
Pizzorno-Murray pioneering volume: 2-million sold
Organizations
-American Medical
Student Association/ACIMH Open LEAPS Program to Students from Non-MD Fields
-IAYT Takes Next
Steps in Certification Program for Yoga Therapists International
-John Weeks' The Global Integrator Blog Round-up for March 2015 from Global Advances in Health and Medicine
-Australian Agency:
"No Good Quality Evidence that Homeopathy is Effective in Treating Health
Conditions" Miscellaneous -The 30-Year, International Reach
of Pizzorno-Murray's Textbook and Their Encyclopedia of Natural
Medicine People
-Penny George
Institute's Greg Plotnikoff, MD Honored as an "Inspiring Physician" by the
Minnesota Medical Association
-Tieraona Low Dog,
MD Granted Herbal Insight Award by the American Herbal Products Association
-Frank Nicchi, DC,
MS Honored by the Association of Chiropractic Colleges
-Loren Israelsen Receives American Botanical Council's Mark Blumenthal
Herbal Community Builder Award
-Terry Lemerond
Honored by American Botanical Council with Inaugural Champion's Award
___________________________ Policy
FDA: hearing announced on homeopathy
Comment Period until June 22: FDA Calls for Comments and Announces April
20-21 Hearing on Regulation of Homeopathics
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has
announced plans for a "public hearing to obtain information and comments
from stakeholders about the current use of human drug and biological products
labeled as homeopathic, as well as the Agency's regulatory framework for such
products." The April 20-21, 2015 sessions are entitled "Homeopathic Product
Regulation: Evaluating FDA's Regulatory Framework after a Quarter-Century." The
FDA is inviting potential presentations and seeks written testimony from the
general public by June 22, 2015. The agency's Federal Register Notice details 8 specific areas of
interest. Included are an exploration of other nations' regulatory frameworks,
present attitudes, data sources, and the state of information for consumer
decision makers. The FDA's agenda for the hearing will be published later. Sign-up
for the webcast of the proceedings will be available here.
Comment: In a longer
reflection on the timing of this FDA action, I note its concurrence with
the recent dismissal of the entire field of homeopathy by Australia's National
Health and Medical Research Council. (See international, below.) The
homeopathic field is actively organizing multiple strategies. If the FDA allows
the strongest voices on the science behind homeopathy to speak, this could
prove to be a truly remarkable exploration of ways of seeing, and prescribing.
Call for public comments on pain strategy
Comment Period until May 20: HHS
Publishes DRAFT National Plan for Pain Care
The US Department of Health and Human Services has
released a draft
of its long-awaited National Pain Strategy.
HHS was charged to develop such a document in the 2011 IOM Report: Relieving Pain in America: "The
Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services should develop a
comprehensive, population health-level strategy for pain prevention, treatment,
management, education, reimbursement, and research that includes specific
goals, actions, time frames, and resources." Public comment is open until May 20, 2015.
The report was prepared through the NIH National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke. Public comments will be accepted until May 20, 2015. The
solicitation is here in the Federal
Register.
Make the case for early IHM
Comment: A cursory look for evidence on integrative
medicine and health players among the individuals involved on the HHS team
finds no one on the core teams. Myra Christopher, the director of the Pain
Action Alliance to Implement a National Strategy is familiar with and can be
friendly toward integrative strategies, though closely linked to the pharma
industry. Maryland's Brian
Berman, MD was on the education
and training team. Some pain leaders at the integrative care-friendly
Veteran's Administration are also on these teams, like Rolland (Mac) Gallagher,
MD, MPH, who heads Berman's group. It is
interprofessionally unfortunate that HHS didn't deign to name anyone from the
distinctly licensed complementary and alternative medicine disciplines whose
nearly 400,000 licensed practitioners provide the lion's share of the
non-pharmacologic pain treatment.
I have yet to engage a thorough review of the document.
Here are two points to hit on, in any response. But target the effort to change
the therapeutic order and have non-pharmacologic approaches upfront instead of
as a last resort. One is the Never
Only Opioids theme. The second is the November 2014 "clarification"
from the Joint Commission that elevated non-pharmacologic approaches. Any
U.S. National Plan that embraces the principal of using less invasive approaches
first will be a huge step in the healing directions.
Economics
Perverse incentives
Column Available: "Perverse Incentives and the Triple Aim: Overcoming the
Troubled Path to Economic Integration for Integrative Medicine and Health"
Comment:
The article - and indeed an important piece of my own work the
last two years - have focused on the potential upside
of the Triple
Aim era for aligning incentives between integrative health and
medicine and the economics of payment and delivery. A colleague recently sent a
sobering note that underscored an emerging Accountable Care Organization
practice. It appears that ACOs are once again managing to twist hopes for
health creation into yet another means for profit at the expense of anything in
the Triple Aim - leaving us wondering again to whom these organizations are
ultimately "accountable." Despite the back-sliding, I stand with my general
theme that there is gold in the new alignment in the same way that one might
say, on election-day, "I voted for the lesser of two evils."
Clinical
Goldman: great look at Cleveland Clinic
Erik Goldman's Fascinating
Portrait, for FON Consulting, of the Cleveland Clinic's Integrative Program
Holistic Primary
Care editor Erik Goldman
was likely the first top-flight, mainstream medical journalist, back in the
early 1990s, to take the emergence of alternative, complementary then
integrative medicine seriously. So his report for FON Consulting on a visit to
the Cleveland Clinic to look in on its robust integrative medicine program
began and ended without rose-colored glasses. Entitled Cleveland
Clinic's Center for Functional Medicine: A Test Kitchen for Healthcare's Future,
Goldman concludes that he "came away with the sense that Cleveland Clinic's
leaders are committed to exploring the potential of true, unfettered functional
medicine." Two of Goldman's comments: "If I had just one word to describe
patient care at CFM, it would be ‘thorough,' with
‘unhurried' a close second." Then:
"The space allocation is small,
equipment is minimal, and there's nothing present that doesn't need to be
there. In essence, the sytem is designed for maximal productivity on a minimal
footprint. But it is clear that it could be scaled as the need arises."
Hannaway: good start for functional outcomes
The article includes reference to Goldman's prior article
"Cleveland
Clinic Gets ‘Functional'" in which he speaks to the depth of the commitment
to an integrative and functional model of the Clinic's "visionary" leader, Toby
Cosgrove, MD. Goldman quotes functional medicine icon Mark Hyman, MD stating:
"For two years [Cosgrove's] been chasing me to try to get me to come to
Cleveland." Hyman is now there, part-time, and so is the Institute for
Functional Medicine's Patrick
Hanaway, MD.
Quick Links to
Integrative Medicine News in Medical Systems and Communities: March 2015
This typically monthly Integrator
feature is, for March
2015, a quick capture of highlights from the stories that flow
in daily from various sources relative to "integrative medicine." Michigan,
Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Maryland, New
York, Georgia, California, Connecticut, Washington, Arizona, Maine, Indiana and
Texas: here, in these states, 26 selections related to hospitals and medical
organizations and integrative medicine, plus 5 from alternative and integrative
medicine in community, non-system practices. (Note that Global News Links are
now posted at The
Global Integrator Blog for Global Advances in Health and Medicine - see related
notice here. Exciting development.)
Comment:
In each of the named states some integrative medicine activity surfaced in the
news in March 2015. While I typically don't spend time dwelling on the
Polarization-Based Medicine.com people (see note below under Miscellaneous), I do enjoy thinking how
these links must each be as Lilliputian ties that bind them to the awful
realization that their suppressive cause is lost.
Research
Briggs: great new interactions initiative
Briggs Blasts
Over-Prescribing of Opioids and Announces NCCIH Initiative to Explore
"Misplaced Fear" of Drug-Botanical Interactions
An article in Holistic Primary Care, NIH
Center to Confront Fears of Drug-Herb Interactions, has reported that
Josephine Briggs, ND, director of the NIH National Center for Complementary and
Integrative Health, is "launching a major initiative to re-evaluate the reality
of interactions." Why? "Misplaced fear about herb-drug interactions is keeping
many practitioners from recommending potentially beneficial botanical
medicines." According to HPC, the initiative
will include developing "rigorous standards for herb-drug interaction testing."
Briggs announced the initiative in her talk before the annual
meeting of the American Herb Products Association in early March. In
reference to the potential values of herbs, presently suppressed by fears of
interactions, Briggs referenced that adverse consequences of overuse of
antibiotics and opioids. Of the latter: "I am ashamed of the medical profession
in this regard. The overuse and inappropriate use of opioids is incredibly
shocking. In certain communities drug-related deaths are exceeding motor
vehicle fatalities."
Stargrove: text examines positive and negative interactions
Comment: This is an excellent and gutsy initiative, for
which Briggs should be commended. It always seemed strange if not unsurprising
that fear-mongering about negative interactions marked the entrance of herbs
onto the medical scene. Here's hoping that NCCIH will eventually start
examining situations where integrative practitioners are intentionally using
herbs to wean patients off of pharma that has a more significant adverse effect
profile. (The Stargrove-McKee reference text on Herb, Nutrient and Drug Interactions explores this positive angle.) It's happening today, in integrative practices all over North America.
Looking forward to that research, which many of us thought, naively, would have
been on the agenda in the mid-1990s when the public funding began to pour
through the NIH to explore "alternative medicine."
Seely: partnered with Standish on cancer trial
$3-million Grant
to Ottawa Integrative Center for "Real World" Look at Outcomes of Advanced
Integrative Oncology
A grant
of $3-million to the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Center and Bastyr University
will allow the examination of the outcomes when 400 individuals with advanced
breast, colorectal, pancreatic and ovarian cancer to receive "advanced
integrative oncology" treatment. The study will be engaged at 7 clinics across
North America. These study's principal investigators are Dugald
Seely, ND and Leanna
Standish, PhD, ND, LAc. Standish's integrative cancer work has previously
been funded through the NIH. The study will also describe the
integrative therapies provided by naturopathic doctors across the seven
clinics.
Comment: This is
a terrific, real world study and the kind we should see more often. Notably,
again, it was not funded here in the United States, but abroad, where concern
is more connected to outcomes than absolutes. Great to see a U.S. player
connected. Time to take a page from our northern colleagues.
The Mud Smudge of Courage
Regarding Dugald Seely,
Polarization-based Medicine Bloggers, and the Integrative "Mud Smudge of
Courage"
Comment: Shortly
after receiving the grant noted immediately above, Dugald Seely, ND, the
principal investigator and director or the Ottawa Center, was also granted
the "Mud Smudge of Courage" - though not in his case for the first time.
This is the name I gave the honoring of Seely by being referenced as one of the
low-dog integrative scoundrels in a column one of the polarization-based
medicine bloggers who operate under the April fool's title of
"sciencebasedmedicine." If one doesn't feel compelled to actually read or,
worse yet, respond and try to talk sense to these polarization-based operators
(horrors!), one is not actually bloodied. Thus there should be no actual Red Badge of Courage.
Instead, a Mud Smudge. Because as one
of my mentors, Cathy Rogers, ND, taught me back in the 1980s, battling with
such forces is only going to muddy you.
Pournadaeli: letter to Briggs from AANP
AANP President Pournadeali's
Letter to NCCIH Requesting Increased Licensed Complementary and Integrative
Practitioners on Advisory Council
In a letter to Josephine Briggs, MD, director of the
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Kasra Pournadeali, ND,
president of the American Association of
Naturopathic Physicians (AANP), expresses concern with the very low number
of licensed complementary and alternative medicine practitioners on the
agency's Advisory Council.
(See "Going, Going, Nearly Gone" here.)
In the letter, shared with the Integrator,
Pournadeali writes, in part: "This is a source of concern to us. Practitioners
of complementary and integrative medicine bring a strong base of clinical
training as well as the understanding of patients' interests, questions, and
concerns. They are where the proverbial
rubber meets the road. AANP urges you to
bear in mind Congress' mandate (in
the legislation that created NCCIH) that at least half of the Council must
be composed of "practitioners licensed in one or more of the major systems with
which [NCCIH] is concerned."
Comment:
Excellent sign that at least one of the professions is standing up for what
clearly was stated in the 1998 mandate. Here's hoping Briggs will see the merit
in increasing these representatives rapidly toward the 50% mark. After all, as
Briggs 2011-2015 strategic plan states, "complementary and alternative medicine
practitioners are the key holders of knowledge related to the potential
application of CAM intervention and disciplines." Upping these numbers from the
licensed "CAM" scientists out there will be another courageous step for Briggs,
like the one she is taking on drug-herb interactions (see above). Each moves
away from the fear mentality that marked the first era of this mandated
interprofessionalism.
Clinical partnership becomes research partnership
Award of $415,000 Supports
Research on Via CCNM and Toronto's Brampton Hospital on Naturopathic Care for
Type 2 Diabetes
A clinical services connection between the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine
(CCNM) and Brampton General Hospital has flourished into a $410,000
research exploration of naturopathic care for patients with Type 2
diabetes. According to an article on the study, the William Osler Health System
will be affiliated with the study. Patients "will be offered the opportunity to
participate in the clinical trial, which Osler's research team, in partnership
with CCNM, will oversee." Participants from Osler's rich patient base with diabetes
will be randomly selected for the active treatment group to receive
naturopathic care at CCNM's Brampton Naturopathic Teaching Clinic (BNTC). The
care will be delivered "in addition to their ongoing treatment." Diabetes
researcher Ryan
Bradley, ND, MPH is affiliated with the study.
Bradley: diabetes expert on team
Comment: One
of the realities in NIH funding is that many reviewers will give lousy scores to
any proposal involving naturopathic doctors because the profession is only
regulated in 18 states. The logic is: How
can naturopathic outcomes possibly be of national consequence? If one has
no sense of the depth of the naturopathic/integrative overlap, that might be an
argument one might consider that the intriguing early
research of Bradley and Eric Oberg, ND, MPH and Dan Cherkin, PhD and others
on "naturopathic adjunctive care" has not been advanced by funding agencies.
Great, again, to see our Canadian neighbors, and an
anonymous funder, step up to explore the potential. Of course, "naturopathic
adjunctive care" is likely to look a heck of a lot like "integrative medicine"
and so the learning will, in fact, be very widely applicable. Or, let's put it this way: if it shows
positive, the study will be used to prove the integrative medicine model. If
not, well, maybe it'll be - in that off-color Lone Ranger joke: "What
do you mean we, Keemosabe?"
Academics
Church: candor in exit interview
Bastyr President
Dan Church, PhD: The Natural Medicine
Journal's Candid Exit Interview after His 10 Years at the Helm
"You get a couple thousand people together who are all convinced that they are
changing the world and it is at once exhilarating and horrifying. The herding
cats metaphor doesn't begin to touch it." This is one comment of many in a Natural Medicine Journaltaped
dialogue with Bastyr University president Dan Church, PhD by publisher
Karolyn Gazella. On June 30, 2015, Church will leave his post after 10 years of
considerable accomplishment. The interview reveals an outsider who took the job
out of a desire to move back to Seattle rather than a passion for the field. He
describes wrestling with "the peculiar history and ethos of the university," founded
by a "passionate" group of naturopathic physicians, and how to best represent
it. He speaks to that field's
"confidence and defensiveness."
In the NMJ
interview, Church celebrates such milestones as the opening of Bastyr's San Diego campus and of internal,
institution-shaping moments like the surprise death of co-founder Bill Mitchell, ND and the
centennial of John Bastyr, ND, after whom the institutions was named. One thought-provoking view of Church's on
integration: "The MDs moved toward us more than we moved toward them." He
believes the activists he represents would sometimes do better to "bite our
tongues and speak collaboratively more."
A major challenge and frustration was in failing to raising the kind of
philanthropic investment he would have liked. (He did see Bastyr manage to
lower its tuition dependency to 72% of revenues, very good for these "CAM"
institutions.) Church believes a positive legacy has been to take a somewhat
"rag tag bag of people who were so passionate that they were moving forward
however they could - to bring more institutional and credible trappings."
Comment: This is a fascinating interview, at many
levels. I am among the rag-tag. At times over the years I urged Church to see
the institution as an agent of a movement, arguing that its graduates do not graduate
into secure jobs that can readily help them shed their $200,000 of debt from
their ND education. To his credit, the Bastyr that Church shepherded invested
more in policy-related initiatives than perhaps any other integrative health
and medicine academic institution.
Bastyr is a seven-year, ongoing Sustaining Investor in the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative
Healthcare and its federal policy efforts. The institution was also an
early Partner in Health for the Integrative Health
Policy Consortium, co-sponsoring the important 2010 Stakeholders Summit,
the 2014 Harkin event, and more crucially, today, the IHPC's CoverMyCare campaign. Take a
listen! Church steps down at the end of June. His successor has not been
named.
Adds new B.S. programs
Naturopathic
Mothership NCNM to Add Bachelors' Programs to Expanding Graduate Offerings
The Portland, Oregon-based National College of Natural
Medicine (NCNM) has
announced that it will begin to offer undergraduate programs. Starting in
fall of 2015, the institution - formerly the National College of Naturopathic
Medicine - will offer a Bachelor of Science in Integrative Health Sciences and
a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition. These add to offerings from its current
schools of naturopathic medicine, classical Chinese medicine, a handful of
Masters-level degree programs and the growing Helfgott
Research Institute. NCNM is being guided through this growth by David
Schleich, PhD, NCNM's president.
Comment: A problem with a single purpose professional institution
is that, short of a gazillionaire benefactor, the institution will always be
resource-pressed to even hire much full-time faculty. Forget about sustaining research, policy or
community engagement. Over the past couple decades, a half dozen such schools have
formally left their single purpose roots to become universities of integrative
health and medicine: one other ND-based, 4 from chiropractic schools, one
acupuncture and Oriental medicine. NCNM appears to be the next in the process
of becoming a broad-based university of natural health sciences.
It is interesting, in the context of the Church
interview, above, to consider the messianic fire for naturopathic care and
natural medicine that Schleich brings to his work. Will this fire be doused by
the necessary increase of bureaucracy that comes with size? I'll never forgot
the awakening I had at age 37 when, facing a regional accreditor, I learned
that the joke educators like to tell on themselves is that "no educator likes
to do anything for the first time." Dashed my naiveté! Church, above, speaks to
the challenge of including activist entrepreneurialism while also acting with
academic credibility. How will the NCNM model mature as this growth continues?
Organizations
Inviting non-MD students to IM intensive
American Medical
Student Association/ACIMH Open LEAPS Program to Students from Non-MD Fields
Comment: This
is a terrific opening. Some take the position that it is best for MD doctors or
students awakening to integrative interests to do so first among their own
kind. One can see the argument. But why not lay down the first identity for
"integrative" as being, well, "integrative" of all "health professionals and
disciplines as the ACIMH
definition puts it? Here's hoping some quality candidates sign up.
Stepwise process to certification
IAYT Takes Next
Steps in Certification Program for Yoga Therapists
On March 26, 2015, the International
Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) posted a note to members of new
developments in its initiative to create a quality method
for certification in the emerging field of Yoga therapy. The notice from IAYT executive director John
Kepner notes that "this continues be a
work in process and our goal is to post more details about the grand-parenting
avenues well before our annual membership conference." The IAYT Certification
Committee will be reporting out to interested parties at the meeting of schools
at its June 2015 conference. The IAYT's Certification Committee site lists 16
reasons why the certification process is moving at a pace that is slower than
some would like.
Comment: As "news," this IAYT e-blast was not much. I
report it as a step in an intricate and wise roll-out process. The plodding,
tortoise-like method respects that there is suspicion that lands heavy if
anyone is believed to have any private agenda in such a profoundly important
public and professional purpose. Transparency and process are key. It is a
truism that spoon-feeding is in order when it come to the precarious,
head-bumping baby-steps of profession building.
International
John Weeks' The Global Integrator Blog Round-up
for March 2015 from Global Advances in Health and
Medicine
In January 2015, Integrator
publisher-editor John Weeks (this writer) began producing "The Global
Integrator Blog" for the web portal of the exceptional Global Advances
in Health and Medicine Journal. Each month, Weeks produces 7-10 posts
that are gathered into a monthly Round-up
with headlines succinctly delivered. For the March 2015 Round-up, included among 7 posts were: a Chinese traditional
medicine group obtained WHO status; a new web resource from Norway on
"CAM" regulation in Europe; a review of developments in the medicinal
trade in animal (and Albino human) parts; the new Global Wellness evidence
base; and 50
hot links to other developments. For February's Round-up, click
here.
Comment: Take
a look if you have any global, travel or international passion. For those of
you who are interested and choose to peruse this activity, or are otherwise
involved globally, I invite your news items and perspectives on areas where the
international movement in integrative health and medicine might become more linked
and engaged. I am involved with a team at the Academy
of Integrative Health and Medicine working on this. Comments and
suggestions are welcome.
Finds no support for homeopathy
Australian Agency:
"No Good Quality Evidence that Homeopathy is Effective in Treating Health
Conditions"
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of
Australia has published a report blandly entitled: Evidence of the Effectiveness of Homeopathy for Treating Health
Conditions. The agency's release on the study is blunt: there is no "good quality
evidence that homeopathy is effective in treating health conditions." The
finding was based on 225 papers that met the NHMRC's controversial inclusion
criterion out of a total of 1800 papers assessed. The report was picked up
internationally. Some examples: ABC News ("Homeopathy Doesn't Work"), The Guardian ("Homeopathy Not Effective for Any
Condition") and Al Jazeera ("Ineffective for any health condition").
In response, the U.S. National Center for Homeopathy guides its readers to a critique of the NHMRC report by the
Homeopathy Research
Institute (HRI). HRI notes that while they participated in the report's
preparation, their questions about the study's methods were not included in the
report. Was this bogus process? They question parameters of what NHMRC
considered useful evidence. Their core concern is methodological: "The
inaccuracy of the NHMRCs conclusions stem primarily from one fundamental
flaw at the heart of this report-the NHMRC reviewers considered the results of
all trials for one condition together as a whole, even though the individual
trials were assessing very different types of homeopathic treatment."
Ullman:challenges inclusion criteria
Comment: These
media accounts are hardly palm fronds to welcome the homeopaths to the April
20-21 public hearings by the US FDA. (See Policy, above.) According to author
and homeopath Dana Ullman, MPH, CHC, acceding to the MHMRC inclusion
criterion could set a nasty pattern for other natural health fields. In an
e-exchange with The Global Integrator, Ullman shared that one such
criterion was that studies must have "three clinical trials of 150+ subjects,
each randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, with three separate groups
of researchers." Such criteria would, Ullman opines, likely bring such flagellated
by headline to acupuncture, herbal medicine, and virtually every other
non-pharmacologic approach or treatment.
Miscellaneous
The historic, loose-leaf, Textbook
The 30-Year, International Reach
of Pizzorno-Murray's Textbook and Their Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine
In 1985, science-based natural medicine pioneer Joseph Pizzorno, ND, and his coauthor, Michael Murray,
ND, first published the Textbook of Natural Medicine. It was the first of its kind
to link natural medicine as thoroughly as possible to existing scientific
evidence for specific agents, therapies and conditions. The original loose-leaf
binder format eventually encompassed two volumes in its 14 year run. It was
meant to be responsive to the changing and already growing international
evidence base. Pizzorno recently recalled for The Integrator that the Textbook in this format for 14 years "was
updated 30 times with new/revised content."
Now, following 3 subsequent hardbound editions, 100,000
copies have been sold. Pizzorno credits Murray, his former student: "Most of
the chapters in the Textbook were written by Murray, starting with the first
edition in 1985." Multiply those sales
times 20 and one has the reaches the 2,000,000 copies sold of a consumer version
the two subsequently created entitled The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine. It's been
translated into Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Yugoslavian. The
Textbook found translators into Japanese, Italian, and Cyrillic.
Comment: It is
difficult to overstate the impact of these two volumes on the growth of
integrative health and medicine. The very phrase "science-based natural
medicine" that Pizzorno and Murray brought forward was a striking announcement
of a nascent cultural blossoming. With the twin eruptions of globalization and
the internet in the 1980s, new sources of evidence were increasingly available.
Today, we see many similar heavily referenced volumes and web portals. The
Textbook marked a paradigm shift in thinking about herbs and other natural
health approach. Science was not an enemy but an ally. (A longer version of
this article was first
published here.)
People
Plotnikoff: an inspiration
Penny George
Institute's Greg Plotnikoff, MD Honored as an "Inspiring Physician" by the
Minnesota Medical Association
The Minnesota Medical Association (MMA) has named Greg
Plotnikoff, MD as an "Inspiring Physician." The award page notes that 25 years
ago Plotnikoff was challenged by a patient to explore non-pharmacologic
practices. Since then "he's been an integral part of several highly acclaimed
integrative medicine programs, including the Minneapolis-based Penny George Institute for Health and Healing." The
evidence of "inspiring" the MMA reported about Plotnikoff relate to his use of
Vitamin D and of other functional medicine.
Comment: Nice to see a functional, integrative
medicine doctor celebrated by a state medical association and to have the
organization focus on the nature of his non-regular approach to medicine in
explanation of why he is inspiring.
Low Dog: herbal insight award
Tieraona Low Dog,
MD Granted Herbal Insight Award by the American Herbal Products Association
In recognition of "her efforts to significantly increase
and further knowledge and understanding of botanicals and their uses," the
American Herbal Products Association has awardedTieraona Low Dog, MD the AHPA
Herbal Insight Award. Low Dog is internationally-recognized for her expertise
related to dietary supplements, herbal medicine and women's health. The AHPA
statement notes that Low Dog has "spoken at more than 550 scientific/medical
conferences, published 40 peer-reviewed articles, and written 20 chapters for
medical textbooks." In granting the award, Roy Upton, founder and executive
director of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia,
called Low Dog a "moving force of change."
Comment: Rare is the integrative
medical doctor whose career as a healthcare professional began as an herbalist
and midwife and included a long period in leadership, then directing, a program
as influential as the University of Arizona's fellowship in integrative
medicine program. N of 1, Dr. Low Dog.
Nicchi: honored by chiropractic colleges group
Frank Nicchi, DC,
MS Honored by the Association of Chiropractic Colleges
The president of the New York College of Chiropractic,
Frank Nicchi, DC, MS, has been honored
by the Association of Chiropractic Colleges following 15 years of service in
the organization's leadership. He has held virtually every officer role,
including the presidency, overseen a strategic planning process and brought "a
disciplined ‘no nonsense' style to the position," according to current
president Brian McAulay, PhD. Said McAulay: "Dr. Nicchi's leadership within the
ACC over the past decade has been exemplary; he provided clear direction and a
strong strategic approach to the organization, moving the ACC's agenda forward
in a most inclusive and productive manner."
Comment: I had
the opportunity to work closely with Nicchi when he chaired the first stages of
the Primary Care Project
of the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care. He
held the space beautifully for some strong-willed leaders from four disciplines
to find their way toward consensus on the outlines of a passionately engaged
project.
Israelsen: community builder
Loren Israelsen Receives American Botanical Council's Mark Blumenthal
Herbal Community Builder Award
The American
Botanical Council (ABC) has selected Loren Israelsen as the recipient of its 2014 Mark
Blumenthal Herbal Community Builder Award. Israelsen, an attorney and policy
leader since taking a position at Nature's Way in the late 1980s, is founder
and president of the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA - formerly Utah Natural Products Alliance). A release on the
award notes that "Loren is one of those rare jewels that this industry is
highly fortunate to have in its midst. His measured, thoughtful, and insightful
approaches to the issues and challenges we face on a daily basis reinforce not
only his value - but also his values - to the greater community."
Comment: I can recall encountering
Israelsen for the first time at a trade show in Atlantic City in 1986 when I
was introducing around, and trying to solicit industry investment in, what is
now Bastyr University. Israelsen was one of the few who immediately understood
the potency of there being, for the first time, an accredited academic
institution, recognized by the federal government, in which botanical medicine
was part of the curriculum, closely linked to the industry for which he was
already an emerging leader. He has shown such valued-based vision for the
industry many times since.
Lemerond: inaugural champion
Terry Lemerond
Honored by American Botanical Council with Inaugural Champion's Award
Terry Lemerond,
founder and president of EuroPharma, is the recipient of the American Botanical
Council's (ABC) inaugural Champion Award. The
award was created to recognize an individual or who has been an outstanding
supporters in the achievement of ABC's nonprofit educational mission. Lemerond founded and
owned Enzymatic Therapy and PhytoPharmica which he sold in 2000 before founding
EuroPharma, and its sister company for professionals, EuroMedica. Blumenthal spoke of Lemerond's extraordinary
and ongoing support of ABC's mission.
Comment: An interesting coincidence is news of this award and the note related
to Michael Murray, ND above. Murray worked closely with Lemerond to popularize
standardized extracts. Lemerond was also an early financial investor in the growth
of Bastyr.