Allopathic medicine is the modern, scientific, form of western medicine, the type you get from most doctors and hospitals in industrialised countries. The word is derived from allos "opposite" and pathos "suffering". It is often criticised for suppressing symptoms rather than looking for the root cause of a disease.

Allopathic medicine may excel in emergency care but does not concentrate on prevention. This is where the more traditional (as well as some recently invented) holistic therapies, outside the aegis of scientific medicine, come in.  Alternative therapists have however been viewed with suspicion by many 'orthodox' doctors whose training tends to bias them against what they consider to be 'unconventional' healing systems.

However, during the last decade there has been a remarkable growth in alternative medicine. The result has been the birth of 'complementary' medicine, a system whereby the two types of medicine can work side by side. This may sound benign but I must sound a note of caution. Organised medicine still wants to be in control. Alternative therapists may find this illusion of 'joining forces' turns out to be less beneficial than they think.

In its anxiety to become more acceptable and 'mainstream' holistic medicine, it is in danger of falling into a trap, that of being taken over by conventional medicine. History is replete with examples of orthodox medicine crushing all 'competition'. I believe that we are facing this same danger now. Should this happen the holistic therapies will be annexed to mainstream medicine thus excluding anyone who is not a conventional doctor. The European drive towards standardisation seeks to  impose the type of regulatory framework where it is illegal for anyone who is not an orthodox doctor to practise. If alternative practitioners do, they may be deemed to be 'practising medicine without a licence', even although they or obviously doing nothing of the kind.

As allopathic medicine is unable to accept systems based on theoretical and philosophical concepts (those which cannot yet be proved within our current knowledge and level of technology) it will be difficult for them not to discriminate against holistic disciplines if 'complementary' therapies become incorporated into mainstream medicine.

Allopathic & Complimentary Medicine an Uneasy Marriage

It is clear that people today want a plurality of medical approaches and the freedom to choose. They will not accept conventional medicine's dominance with its over reliance on powerful drugs and surgery.

Freedom of choice is haemorrhaging away and the E.U. Food Supplements Directive, with others in the pipeline, threaten to destroy alternative medicine, putting it into the hands of people who do not believe in its validity.

I urge everyone to become informed regarding this danger to our alternative therapies and to become active in trying to safeguard them, both for our good health and that of future generations.

Marlene Houghton, CH Ed Dip NuTh