Complementary and alternative health care in Israel

Despite the vast achievements and dramatic successes of conventional bio-medicine, remarkable numbers of people in Western societies seek complementary or alternative health care (CAM). In most cases they do not abandon conventional medicine but turn to CAM as an additional mode of care [1-4].The National Institutes of Health in the United States have provided scientific evidence for the effectiveness of some forms of alternative care, but many of the widely used methods have not passed rigorous tests for efficacy or have never been scientifically scrutinized http://nccam.nih.gov webcite. The lack of scientific evidence hardly troubles users of alternative medicine: what counts for them is the fact that in many cases it works! - they have little interest in how or why. Failures are largely ignored while success is celebrated. It would seem that these social processes in the field of health care are not ephemeral but are likely to continue in one form or another. Indeed it seems fruitful to view CAM as an important component of the overall health care system. For this reason it is our hope that the Israel findings reported here will be useful to health policy planners in other countries as well.The present paper draws on over ten years of research on CAM in Israel that included observation, survey research, and more than one hundred in-depth interviews with a variety of CAM practitioners - many with bio-medical credentials - and with policy makers in the bio-medical system. The overall goal of that research was to explore the multiplicity of empirical types of coexistence between alternative and bio-medicine that have emerged in Israel. These are seen in a variety of forms that reflect cultural, political, and social forces in the society. We sought to understand the dilemmas and quandaries that arise due to the perspectives of the principal actors who adhere to different beliefs and ideologies regarding the causes of health problems and appropriate therapeutic proce