To Teach or Not to Teach The Role of Alternative Medicine in Philippine Medical

??The trend away from traditional or allopathic medicine is borne by the following statistics and facts:

1. It has been estimated that the US public spent between $36 and $47 B on CAM therapies.

2. There are now states with naturopathic licensing laws and licensure of Naturopathic physicians is expanding into new states.

3. Legitimacy and significance of CAM has been recognized by public and private authorities, i.e. In the US, the NIH’s Office of Alternative Medicine was created by an act of Congress, and in the Philippines, the TAMA law created the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care (PITAHC)

4. One out of every two baby boomers uses non-conventional therapies. Boomers seem to facor safe and noninvasive alternative treatments.]

5. 42.1 % of Americans surveyed used therapies outside of mainstream medicine like acupuncture, chiropractics and homeopathy. This figure is up by almost 25% from a survey done seven years before.

6. The Instittute for Alternative Futures predicts that be 2010 at least 66% of Americans will be using one or more approaches now considered alternative or complementary.

7. In the Philippines, more than 80 % of the population in rural areas depend on alternative or complementary forms of medical treatment.

8. The increasing cost of drugs and medical care, the side effects from pharmaceuticals and the desire of patients to be actively involved with medical decision making are reasons for increasing trend of CAM use.

9. Recent WHO statistics show the following:

a. In China, traditional medicine accounts for around 40% of all health

b. In Chile 71% of the population, and in Colombia 40% of the population, have used such medicine.

c. In India, 65% of the populations in rural areas use traditional medicine to help meet their primary health care needs.

d. In developed countries, traditional, complementary and alternative medicines are becoming more popular. For example, the percentage of the population that has used such medicines at least once is 48% in Australia, 31% in Belgium, 70% in Canada, 49% in France and 42% in the United States of America.