In an earlier post, I urged everyone to write to the IOM and request that holistic practitioners be included on the panel that will be assessing comparative effectiveness of medical treatments. The panel's conclusions will serve as a critical piece in the national health care reform.
Here's the comment I just submitted to the IOM. Please go here and submit your comment. And feel free to copy and paste my comment if you don't have the time to write your own. (Just sign it with your own name, of course!)
To Whom It May Concern:
I was disappointed to find out that no CAM practitioners were included on this highly esteemed panel. How are we to arrive at a truly effective and cost-efficient health care system when the CAM field is not being represented?
Given the discussion at IOM's recent Integrative Medicine conference, this is not only disappointing - it is disturbing. It suggests that IOM had simply paid lip-service to the holistic approach to health care, while in practice intending to do nothing to make CAM modalities more broadly available and affordable to the public.
For the comparative effectiveness research to be truly balanced, it must include individuals who are deeply knowledgeable in CAM. None of the panel members currently assembled have the depth of knowledge required for such a balanced assessment.
CAM modalities have been shown time and time again to be efficient, cost-effective, and truly geared toward the creation of health rather than disease management. Public demand for holistic services is at an all-time high and is growing at an unprecedented speed.
Please do the right thing: include some prominent representatives of the CAM field on the panel.
With best regards,
Izabella Tabarovsky
Founder and President
Project Creative Vision
http://www.ProjectCreativeVision.com



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