Pediatricians urged to offer alternative guidance

In this story: Bombarded with information Sign of a shift? RELATED STORIES, SITES

(CNN) -- Parents' exposure to information about complementary and alternative medicine has dramatically increased in recent years. Now doctors need to work even more closely with families to help them sort through it all, a leading pediatrics organization says.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has approved a policy underscoring how important it is for doctors to offer guidance in the area.

"I think there is a natural tendency for physicians to sometimes feel defensive or to be biased," said Dr. Adrian Sandler, chairman of the AAP committee that drafted the policy.

"I think that the statement is a call to pediatricians to maintain an objective and unbiased viewpoint but to be very firmly committed to evidence-based practice."

Bombarded with information

More than a third of adults in the United States have used complementary and alternative medicine within the past few years, the report said. Such treatment includes everything from echinacea to acupuncture.

Sandler, director of the Huff Center for Child Development in Asheville, North Carolina, noted that parents are bombarded with information on alternative treatments, some of which he considers "of dubious quality."

"I think that families' exposure to marketing and to unproven claims has increased dramatically with the Internet," he said.

The policy, published in the March issue of Pediatrics, is neither a rejection nor an endorsement of alternative medicines, but rather an acknowledgement of their growing use and popularity.

"I think we're encouraging the pediatricians to seek information about specific treatments and be prepared to share that information with families," Sandler said.

Use of complementary and alternative medicine is particularly common among children who have chronic illnesses or disabilities, the policy says.

Sign of a shift?

Sandler said that's because traditional therapies often may be complex or uncomfortable, and prospects of a cure may be uncertain or unpromising.

"Under those circumstances, parents are going to become frustrated and are going to look elsewhere," he said, noting that families of children with autism often turn to combinations of vitamin and mineral supplements and unproven diets or other therapies.

The 55,000-member academy's Committee on Children with Disabilities began developing the policy more than two years ago. After extensive review, it was approved recently by the academy board.

Jacqueline C. Wootton, president of the Alternative Medicine Foundation in Bethesda, Maryland, suggested the academy's acknowledgment of alternatives is another signal of a shift in the medical community.

"At least they're recognizing that this is a force and also recognizing that this is a consumer- and patient-driven movement, and that they arrive at the doctor's office armed with a lot of information nowadays," she said.

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