By: Michael H. Cohen
Questions concerning the regulation of complementary and
alternative medical (“CAM”) therapies - such as chiropractic,
massage therapy, acupuncture and traditional oriental medicine,
Ayurvedic naturopathic, folk medicine, and herbal medicine - have
come to the forefront of clinical practice and regulatory
concern. The last decade has seen Congressional establishment
of a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
(“NCCAM”) at the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”), with an
annual budget of over $100 million for research grants; passage of
the federal Dietary Supplements Health Education Act (“DSHEA”),
allowing consumers access to vitamins, minerals, herbal products,
and other “dietary supplements” without prior manufacturer proof of
safety and efficacy or pre-market approval by the Food and Drug
Administration; establishment of a consortium of academic medical
centers with departments specifically dedicated to integrating CAM
into conventional clinical care and the medical curriculum; and
enactment of legislation in California, Minnesota, and Rhode
Island, allowing non-licensed providers of numerous CAM therapies
to offer services to the public.
This year, the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of
Sciences has created a Committee on the Use of Complementary and
Alternative Medicine. The committee is charged, among other
things, with evaluating the “[i]mpact of current
regulation/legislation on CAM research and integration.” A
report to the public, the industry, the medical community, and
Congress is scheduled for completion within two years. The
creation of this committee within the medical community follows the
creation of—and report by—the White House Commission on
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. In addition,
numerous states have created similar committees that issue reports
to their legislatures on complementary medicine policy.
. . . .
[E]xpanded definitions of healing and health are the subject of
two important books whose post-millennial themes concern the
ecology of awareness and the awareness of ecology,
respectively. In Healing, Intention and Energy
Medicine, editors Wayne B. Jonas and Cindy C. Crawford bring
together extensive research on spiritual healing, mind-body
phenomena and the role of intentionality in health. In so
doing, they credit the “frontier” area of spirituality in health
care with scientific underpinnings, and thus help validate the
notion that spiritual approaches have some efficacy, or at least
impact, on the material plane. On the other hand, in A
Language Older Than Words, Derrick Jensen describes the
pre-verbal, universal connectivity that binds all species in the
ecology web underpinning our technocratic social order.
Jensen, trained in physics and psychology, disclaims the hegemonic
power of science to order our conception of reality and freeze our
ideology into a consciousness of dominance and exploitation.
. . . .
This Essay highlights common themes in both books and frames
them in the context of legal regulation of CAM practices.
Part I places the research on healing and intention in the context
of debates around legal regulation of healing. Part II
focuses on Jensen’s contention that the locus of ecological
violence is the urge to dominate and subdue, motivated by the fear
to confront wounds and vulnerability. Part II further
explores Jensen’s notions of ecological and interspecies
healing.
Part III offers reflections on links between research into
healing and intentionality, Jensen’s description of interspecies
communication, and regulatory values in health care. The
Essay concludes with broader thoughts about links between
spirituality in medicine and in law.
Full text version available for download
in PDF format.