Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Legal Boundaries and Regulatory Perspectives

This book is the best of its kind in describing the new terrain covered by the intersection of modern medicine and complementary therapies from a variety of traditions. It should be on the bookshelf of every doc and every CAM provider.

Review from the Integrative Medicine Consult: In this compact and lively analysis, Michael Cohen sums up the history and current status of the legal underpinnings of complementary and alternative medicine vis-a-vis conventional medicine. His language is moderate, falling into neither the caricature of the strident establishment nor the dreaded flowerchild-like New Age interlopers. Cohen covers the areas of regulation, scope of practice, informed consent and malpractice, and describes some of the more widespread alternative providers and treatment. A comprehensive notes section gives the inquisitive reader an in-depth resource of case studies and related literature. Cohen argues that the challenge to the court system is to regulate providers of medicine and healing treatments, protecting patients from unscrupulous practitioners, and yet giving enough leeway to preserve an individual's freedom of choice. Laws and regulatory bodies governing medicine in the United States are geared to the reigning biomedical model, which views the human body as an elaborate machine that operates with many distinct functioning parts. Alternative medicine adopts a broader definition of disease, one that is more holistic. Rules now in place tend to favor conventional medicine and punish other healing practices. Cohen describes what he understands as the inevitable bias of the law toward biomedicine: these laws and this view of medicine evolved together. Slowly the laws are changing in response to the integration of a new medical paradigm. But it will be some time, Cohen points out, before the legal structure can fully adjust, expand the definitions to encompass other forms of healing, and still safeguard the patient population.