Research into CAM
Ernst (2003) outlines the difficulties in developing a high quality
research base for CAM (Ernst 2003). The major obstacles are financial,
methodological and ethical.
Although funds are increasing for CAM research, and some groups
such as the NIH in the USA are devoting large sums to CAM research,
the total budget for CAM research is very small compared to the
overall health research budget.
Methodological problems arise for a number of reasons. In the
manual therapies such as chiropractic it is often difficult to
provide a ”placebo” treatment that ensures that patients
do not know whether they are receiving the active treatment or
not. Also because of the emotive nature of CA, it is often difficult
for CAM practitioners to accept that a randomised controlled trial
is possible for a practice that is holistic and it may also be
difficult to get patients who have faith in CAM to agree to randomisation.
The ethical issues also arise when the practitioner
and/or patient is highly pro-CAM and cannot consider that the
CAM treatment may not be better than placebo.
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