Tu Madre

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
In Western culture, the controversial term alternative medicine is any healing practice "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine", or "that which has notbeen shown consistently to be effective." It is often opposed to evidence based medicine and encompasses therapies with a historical or cultural, rather than a scientific, basis. However, the termalternative medicine has been criticized by those skeptical of such practices as deceptive. Richard Dawkins has stated that "there is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicinethat doesn't work."
The American National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) cites examples including naturopathy, chiropractic medicine, herbalism, traditional Chinesemedicine, Ayurveda, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, hypnosis, homeopathy, acupuncture, and nutritional-based therapies, in addition to a range of other practices.
It is frequently grouped withcomplementary medicine, which generally refers to the same interventions when used in conjunction with mainstream techniques, under the umbrella term complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM. Someresearchers in alternative medicine oppose this grouping, preferring to emphasize differences of approach, but nevertheless use the term CAM, which has become standard."Although heterogeneous, the major CAMsystems have many common characteristics, including a focus on individualizing treatments, treating the whole person, promoting self-care and self-healing, and recognizing the spiritual nature of eachindividual. In addition, many CAM systems have characteristics commonly found in mainstream health care, such as a focus on good nutrition and preventive practices. Unlike mainstream medicine, CAMoften lacks or has only limited experimental and clinical study; however, scientific investigation of CAM is beginning to address this knowledge gap. Thus, boundaries between CAM and mainstream...