Alternative medicine practitioners ask senators for more federal funding

March 29, 2000
Web posted at: 1:02 PM EST (1802 GMT)

By Peter Hartogs

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Doctors and patients told senators Tuesday federal funding has not kept pace with Americans' increasing use of alternative medical therapies.

The National Institutes of Health spends $160 million on alternative and complementary therapies, which is less than one percent of its total funding dollars, according to Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.

"It's woefully inadequate, in terms of taking a look at the promising therapies that people are taking today," Harkin said.

About 42 percent of U.S. health care consumers used some form of alternative therapies in 1997, spending $27 billion, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, (NCCAM) a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Experts are concerned that many popular alternative and complimentary therapies -- such as herbal treatments, acupuncture, and hypnosis -- have not been widely tested.

"It is critical that untested but widely used (complementary and alternative) treatments be rigorously evaluated for safety and efficacy," said Dr. Stephen Strauss, director of NCCAM.

Dr. Dean Ornish, a popular author and the founder of a nutrition program for cardiac patients, also testified at the hearing. He said he hoped that more federal money for research would lead to insurance paying for programs like his.

"Those approaches that are found to be safe and effective should be covered by Medicare and other third party payers so that these methods can be more widely available to other Americans who may benefit from them regardless of socio-economic and demographic background," he said.

Dr. Andrew Weil, director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, testified that many universities have started "fledgling" programs in integrative medicine, but that "without federal direction and guidance there is a real danger they are going to fail."

Dr. Weil also told the senators that there needs to be major changes in medical education.

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National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

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