National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine - Definition and Overview

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine or NCCAM, a division of the National Institutes of Health within the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States federal government, was established in October, 1991, as the Office of Alternative Medicine, which was re-established as the NCCAM in October, 1998. Its mission statement declares that it is "dedicated to exploring complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science; training complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) researchers; and disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals."

The NCCAM funds research into complementary and alternative medicine, including support for clinical trials of CAM techniques.

NCCAM and its predecessor, the Office of Alternative Medicine, have spent more than $200 million on such research since 1991 but have neither succeeded in demonstrating the efficacy of a single alternative method nor declared any alternative medicine treatment ineffective. [1] (http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-09/alternative-medicine.html)

External links

• NCCAM home page (http://nccam.nih.gov/).
• The Ongoing Problem with the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-09/alternative-medicine.html). Critical article from the Skeptical Inquirer.

Example Usage of Complementary