Everyone agrees that our healthcare system is in a state of crisis. Increasing health care costs threaten the economic vitality of our businesses and limit the choices of patients. This trend is likely to continue as the baby-boomer cohort ages. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies need rigorous evaluation with well-designed scientific research to assess their safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness to separate those that are useful from those that are not. Ancillary legal and ethical implications of CAM therapies also need to be examined. CAM, in partnership with the conventional healthcare community can become part of the solution. Consumers, patients and their providers deserve reliable clinical information in these areas of medicine.
