ABSTRACT
The development of CAM practice in England and internationally over the last thirty years has led to what in many respects can be viewed as a polarized debate. It has been suggested that some forms of CAM are untested and have the potential to place patients at risk of considerable harm (Singh and Ernst, 2009). In contrast, others have identified the dangers of seeing CAM in such uncomplicated terms, not least because alternative medical practices are utilized in mainstream medical practice by clinicians and nurses (Saks, 2002, chapter 4). CAM can be better seen as a spectrum of practices involving widely different types of practice, and consequently different risks and different challenges. Thus while “CAM” may prove a useful “umbrella” term, in other respects it can be misleading as it brings together such different bedfellows. At one extreme, CAM practice involves the prescription of pharmaceuticals in the form of herbal medicine, something which is regulated as part of the general EU regime for the regulation of pharmaceuticals. At the other end of the spectrum are practices such as shaman healing (see Alich, this volume), which fall considerably outside standard Western medical models.
