Integrator Blog News & Reports

Integration, by nature, asks us to open our peripheral visions. We are served to look at the whole of the field. We need to develop new fascia, new connectivity. Opportunities crop up in new places. The Integrator Blog News and Reports is meant to provide you with information, insights and tools to enhance integrated care in the environment you serve.
- John Weeks, publisher-editor

Integrator Special Report: The FDA's Guidance on CAM - What is the Appropriate Response?
In recent weeks, a growing crescendo of concerned queries reached the Integrator about the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) document entitled Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration. Is the FDA really trying to squelch health freedoms, stamp out dietary supplements, put alternative therapies and natural health care under the control of allopathic doctors and harm religious practices? Are these claims grounded? Others ask: What does the FDA Guidance really mean? Here is an attempt through a score of interviews with concerned parties, the FDA, flame throwers, and numerous legal and policy experts, to get to the bottom of these claims and counter claims. More...

The FDA's CAM Guidance: Interview with FDA's Co-Author and Senior Scientific Adviser Philip Chao
The February 27, 2007 Federal Register informing the public that the Food and Drug Administration was issuing a Guidance document on complementary and alternative medicine. The issuance has caused a furor on the internet and among the natural health and integrative medicine community. What's up? Over 90,000 protest messages, to one account, have been received by the FDA. In the eye of the storm is on Philip Chao, senior scientific advisor for the FDA and a co-author of the FDA's Guidance document. I queried Chao on three separate occasions about questions on the Guidance raised by both level-headed observers, and some who are well over into the hysterical. Here is a composite of those Integrator interviews with Chao. More...

New York Times Shuts Down US Senators Harkin and Hatch on Supplement Harm Issue
The Integrator closely followed efforts of advisor Michael Levin, a past executive for both dietary supplement and Big Pharma companies, to hold the New York Times accountable for allowing gross overstatements regarding the deaths and harm associated with the appropriate use of dietary supplements. It turns out Levin was in good company when his protests fell on deaf ears. A correction letter by US Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and US Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) was also turned down by the Times. Their rejected letter is printed here. More...

New NIH NCCAM Director Wanted: No Experience or Interest in the Field Required
The NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) quietly posted its want ad for the new director of the $122-million center. The job description does not require or even note a preference for a candidate with clinical or research experience - or even interest - in complementary, alternative or integrative medicine. Wayne Jonas, MD, urges the CAM community to put forward its best candidates. Adi Haramati, PhD, wonders if the wrong new director may set back positive steps taken in recent years. Others wonder if a fix is already in. What ever, it's time for the CAM and integrative medicine community to say enough is enough: If we are moving toward one standard of "good medicine," it's time we have a single standard on how to select leaders ... Meantime, if you know any good candidates, urge them to apply, or submit their names directly to NCCAM. More...

Accountability and Soul: CAM Professions Expert Pamela Snider, ND on the Maturation of the CAM Professions and of Yoga Therapy
Have the complementary healthcare disciplines been strengthened, compromised or both in their maturation and inclusion processes? Might healthcare professions choose directions other than those which ape practice of an already broken system? These questions were of central interest when the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) sponsored the Integrator series on the Future of Yoga Therapy. This closing article in the series features a conversation with Pamela Snider, ND, who has worked closely with leaders of all of the complementary and alternative healthcare disciplines. She touches on challenges in the massage therapy, direct-entry midwifery and naturopathic medical professions, as well as Yoga therapy, in this exploration of Accountability and Soul. More...

Data on an Integrative Medicine Program in a Conventional Academic System: Wake Forest's 2006 Annual Report
Now 38 North American medical schools are members of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine. But what exactly is going on in these institutions? How far is the internal reach? What role do these have in their communities? The 2006 Report to the dean from the integrative medicine program at the Wake First University Medical School provides Integrator readers with a detailed insight into the shape of a robust IM programs: faculty involved, the relevant committees, research funding, top priorities and clinical and educational services. Thanks to Kathi Kemper, MD, MPH, the center's integrative medicine leader for making the report available. More...

The Integrator is made possible through sponsorships from NCMIC, Triad Healthcare, Standard Process, Alternative Medicine Integration Group, Inner Harmony Group and individuals who voluntarily contribute.