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 Alternative Medicine Links
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on this page were subjectively selected for quality and quantity of content as well as
quality of presentation or on-line experience. This is not intended to be an
exhaustive or complete list. Omega ratings are on a scale of one to five, with five being
the highest score. Because the Internet changes rapidly, it is possible that content and
address may have changed since the last update. Please contact the Webmaster if you have comments. |
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What Do the
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On Health This site provides an
excellent combination of news and permanent resources. The news area features Daily Air
Quality and Pollen Report for 50 U.S. Cities, and Reuters health information services,
updated daily. The user can tailor the site to activities in his/her local area by
selecting the nearest city from a menu.
The focus of the permanent resources at this site is complementary care. OnHealth provides
excellent summaries of alternative approaches, including some detailed information,
particularly in the areas of homeopathy (a complete homeopathic remedies medicine list)
and yoga postures. The Ailments & Options feature steps the user through symptoms to
discover possible remedies and assesses the implications of various skin conditions using
photographs. There is an on-line Anatomy lesson, complete with text descriptions and clear
drawings of all major body systems. Yoga aficionados will enjoy the photographic
descriptions of 38 major yoga positions at www.onhealth.com/bh/altprac/htm/yoga.htm
There's also an "Ask an Expert" feature.
The "Conditions A-Z" is the true heart of this site, providing symptoms, causes,
conventional treatments, alternative treatments, and "call your doctor If"
information on literally hundreds of ailments, from acne, to Meniere's disease, to
whooping cough.
This is truly a "Best of the Web" site, with plenty of good content and
excellent navigation features. For some, it may be too commercial.
CAUTION: This site will disable your "back" button. Bookmark this
page if you want to return here.
Quantity
Quality
Presentation
URL: http://www.onhealth.com
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Holistic Internet Community Learning
Center A list of about 75 brief (less than 800 word) essays on virtually
every area of alternative medicine, written from a clinical and anecdotal perspective by
practitioners. Contains a searchable directory of holistic care practitioners, most of
whom are located in the New England area of the U.S.
Quantity
Quality
Presentation
URL: http://www.holistic.com
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Holistic Internet Resources The
Articles and Book Reviews section contains eight articles, on topics such as alternative
approaches to treating ADHD and homeopathic medicine, and about a dozen book reviews. An
older site that is an excellent source of links to holistic sites and practitioners.
Quantity
Quality
Presentation
URL: http://www.hir.com
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Ask Doctor Weil Dr. Andrew Weil
has become America's health guru and has teamed with Dr. Holly Atkinson (who operates The
Women's Clinic here) to provide a highly useful interactive site.
The "Ask Dr. Weil" forum is the site's primary feature, but is still a bit
rough. Other aspects are fine. The "Vitamin Advisor" provides Weil's
recommendations for men and women, based on responses to a series of questions about
dietary habits, life style, and environmental factors. When you get your recommendations,
there's a link to an online vitamin store ready and waiting.
Another nice feature of this site is the Health Wire, which lists recent health-related
articles by the Reuters news agency. The listings provide the sources of information (for
example, medical journals) discussed in each article.
Weil also provides addresses for referrals by private practitioners in the areas of
Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine, Biofeedback, Feldenkrais Work,
Guided Imagery Therapy, Holistic and Herbal Medicine,
Homeopathic Medicine, Hypnotherapy, Naturopathic Medicine, Osteopathic Manipulation,
Cranial Therapy, Rolfing, and Trager Work.
This is a very commercial site that has lots of advertising, which will be the key to its
success.
Quantity
Quality
Presentation
URL: http://www.drweil.com
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Herb Research Foundation URL:
http://www.herbs.org
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NIH Office of Alternative
Medicine
For a point/counterpoint about the mission of this agency, go to http://www.physweekly.com/archive/96/10_14_96/pc.html
With the motto "Bringing together the best of healing . . . and the best of
science" the federal government's foray into the study of alternative medicine at the
National Institute of Health is just getting underway. The primary content here is a list
of consumer advocacy booklets about evaluating the approach, effectiveness, costs,
delivery, and expertise of alternative medicine providers. The show-stopper, however, is
the booklet that admonishes would-be consumers to "Consult Your Health Care
Provider." For many doctors, that would be like going into a Ford dealer and asking
their opinion of a certain brand of bicycle.
There is not much of substance here yet, but the key to what will one day be here is
provided in the objectives for the office's Evaluation Program:
"The Evaluation Program develops rigorous evaluation methods and applies
them to the appraisal of complementary and alternative medical scientific
literature. The Program will detail systematic evaluation methods appropriate
for studies of complementary and alternative medical practices. These
methods will be applied to evaluate bodies of scientific evidence on these
practices. The Program is implementing a process for developing systematic
reviews and meta-analyses of complementary and alternative medical
scientific literature."
Also see Internet Databases.
Quantity
Quality
PresentationURL:
http://altmed.od.nih.gov/oam/
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Quackwatch,
Your Guide to Health Fraud, Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions
The operator, Stephen Barrett, M.D., a retired psychiatrist in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is
a nationally known author, editor, and consumer
advocate. A specialist in medical communications, he is medical editor of Prometheus Books
and consulting editor of Nutrition Forum, a newsletter emphasizing the exposure
of fads, fallacies and quackery.
His activities include investigating questionable claims, answering inquiries,
distributing "reliable" publications, reporting illegal marketing, improving the
quality of health information on the Internet, and attacking misleading advertising on the
Internet
Barrett comes on strong, as expected from a self-styled "consumer advocate." And
he uses descriptive words like "scam," (as in "The Mercury Amalgam
Scam") to describe approaches that rely on anecdotal evidence for efficacy. While
some may be turned off, others may be prone to believing everything Barrett says because
he is a skeptic. It is useful to note that, after doing everything he can to discourage
readers from replacing their amalgam fillings, he still provides a link to the Web site of
the primary advocate of the procedure.Quantity
Quality
Presentation
URL: http://www.quackwatch.com/index.html
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University
& College Alternative Medicine Pages No ratings here,
just a list.
Bastyr University
A school that trains naturopathic doctors.
URL: http://www.bastyr.edu
Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center
The home page of the Rosenthal Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
URL: http://cait.columbia.edu:88/dept/rosenthal
University of Pittsburgh
The Alternative Medicine Home Page, provides information for patients and their families,
as well as care givers and health care workers.
URL: http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/altm.html
University of Puget Sound
Information on allopathic and alternative therapies.
URL: http://otpt.ups.edu/medicine/home.html
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Internet Data Bases Links
and descriptions of PubMed and Internet Grateful Med data
bases. These are excellent sources of abstracts about alternative care efficacy studies
and other medical information.
URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/freemedl.html
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