HONEST MEDICINE: My Dream for the Future

Julia Schopick’s Comment on the Institute of Medicine’s Proposed Panel: Comparative Effectiveness Research of Medical Treatments

I just posted the comment below to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), recommending that they include people with knowledge of integrative medicine on their panel that will be comparing the effectiveness of medical treatments. Click here to leave your own suggestions/comments about the composition of the proposed panel. (Comments will be accepted until March 23, 2009.) At the end of this posting, I'll give links to other websites with relevant information about this issue.

I urge you to access the above link and offer your own input to the IOM about this very important issue.

TO: The Institute of Medicine

I would like to thank the Institute of Medicine (IOM) for giving me this opportunity to submit my comments and recommendations concerning this panel, which has been slated to make recommendations for the $1.1 billion earmarked for comparative effectiveness research of medical treatments.

In my opinion, it is important to have the right people in on the job from the very beginning, so that the a full range of treatments will be compared, once the real comparative effectiveness research begins.

When I looked at the names on your site of the selected panelists, I could not help but notice that TWO very important groups are not being represented:

1) As has been pointed out by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, there are NO TRUE PATIENT OR CONSUMER REPRESENTATIVES on the panel. In their words, “the only patient or consumer representative named to the panel’s tentative roster was from the Alzheimer’s Association, a single-issue patient advocacy group that RECEIVES SUBSTANTIAL SUPPORT FROM THE DRUG INDUSTRY.” (A coalition of 20 consumer, public health and patient advocacy groups has written to the Institute of Medicine, asking that at least three consumer representatives be added to the panel.)

2) Also, and of equal importance: There are NO MEMBERS ON THE PANEL WHO ARE EITHER CAM PRACTITIONERS, OR CAM ADVOCATES. (By the acronym CAM, I am referring to complementary/holistic/”alternative”/integrative practitioners and patient advocates.)

I was amazed at (and extremely surprised and troubled by) both omissions. But I find the SECOND omission especially puzzling, since in late February, two extremely exciting events took place:

(a) First, the IOM convened a 3-day Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public, which was attended by hundreds of people from across the country, excited at the prospect that the new healthcare system would include CAM treatments. The consensus was that the effective use of CAM treatments would save our healthcare system HUGE amounts of money. (Here is a description of this Summit, which integrative healthcare activist and Huffington Post blogger, Alison Rose Levy, called “groundbreaking.” You may also listen to audios of all the speakers’ presentations.)

(b) During the same week, Senate hearings were convened, with several integrative healthcare luminaries testifying. For a video of the complete hearing, go here. 

I would like to suggest that speakers at this hearing, including Drs. Andrew Weil, Mehmet Oz, Mark Hyman and Dean Ornish (as well as several of the Summit speakers and attendees), would be excellent additions to this IOM panel.

For Tom Daschle and Barack Obama: Part 2: Seven of Honest Medicine's Articles / Audios Advocating Integrative Healthcare

I have long advocated, through HonestMedicine.com, the careful combining of conventional and alternative modalities. My point has always been that a sensible medical system would treat patients with carefully chosen, unique combinations of treatments -- both conventional and “alternative” -- that will work best for their particular conditions; and that often, a treatment is ignored, because it is not “standard of care” –- meaning, essentially, that it is not generally accepted by a majority of doctors.

This attitude has always struck me as limited, and I often think, as do many others, that doctors’ are literally “blinded” by the results of pharmaceutically funded “studies,” that are often “rigged” by Big Pharma, so that they will produce the “right,” pro-Pharma results. (Please see "Is It Possible Some Doctors Still Don’t 'Get' the Extent of Big Pharma’s Financial Ties to 'Standard of Care' Research?")

I am posting seven of my pro-Integrative Healthcare articles here. Most have appeared previously on HonestMedicine.com; two are articles I wrote for Alternative and Complementary Therapies Magazine, a professional publication for integrative medical/health practitioners; and two are book reviews: one for HonestMedicine.com; the other, for Amazon.com.

For Tom Daschle and Barack Obama: Part 1: Advocating the Integrative Healthcare Solution

Healthcare Reform is in the air. Tom Daschle’s “house parties” have met, and people are posting their ideas all over the Internet. There’s lots of discussion on websites such as www.change.org and www.health.org. And on www.change.org, people are voting for their favorite issues; several relate to healthcare.

Many of us are very hopeful that, when all is said and done, we will finally have Integrative Healthcare, with a combination of conventional medicine and so-called “alternative” medicine – what Dr. Ronald Hoffman has called “Intelligent Medicine.”

In her December 31st Huffington Post column, “Resolving to Care: Integrative Health Care Reform,”  health writer/advocate Alison Rose Levy wrote that hopefully, “the coming healthcare reform under the Obama administration will improve quality and lower costs by accessing a wide range of Integrative Healthcare modalities,” and that adopting Integrative Healthcare would signal “an end to the long gravy train ride for pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and conventional practices based more on the profit motive than on caring.”