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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Institute of Medicine
Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
Committee on the Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public

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Congressional Briefings
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
192 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg. -- 10:30 a.m.
and
2203 Rayburn House Office Bldg. -- 2:00 p.m.

on

Complementay and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in the United States

At the request of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Institute of Medicine has issued a report, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) in the United States, that assesses what is known about Americans' reliance on those therapies and also assists the NIH in developing research methods and setting priorities for evaluating products and approaches within CAM. The report concludes that health care should strive to be both comprehensive and evidence-based and calls for conventional medical treatments and complementary and alternative treatments to be held to the same standards for demonstrating clinical effectiveness and for research. The report also calls on Congress to work with stakeholders to amend the regulation of supplements, to improve quality control and consumer protections, and to create incentives for research on the efficacy of these products.

These series of briefings were for members of Congress and congressional staff only. The report was publicly released on January 12, 2005 and can be found, in its entirety, on the Web site of the National Academies Press.