in the works. Even the National Institute of Health (NIH) is conducting research on alternative therapies. In Canada, the Canadian Complementary Medicine Association held its first meeting in 1997 in response to reports from Statistics Canada that 3.3 million Canadians sought treatment outside the conventional medical establishment in 1996. At the time of the meeting, about 300 of Canada's 55,000 physicians were using complementary therapies.
The Journal of the American Medical Association in November and December last year was devoted to reports on the exploding trend of Americans towards alternative medicine (JAMA, 1998). Studies published in the journal included evaluations of seven specific remedies and found four had beneficial effects. While the effectiveness of alternative therapies for cancer is not yet proven (Benjamin, Simone, Traub & D'Epiro, 1998), the alternative care community believes that physicians should consider integrating both traditional and alternative therapies in treating cancer patients. Although much more research needs to be done, it does appear that alternative and unconventional therapies may offer relief for certain medical conditions, and in some cases, with less side-effects than traditional medicine.
ALTERNATIVE AND UNCONVENTIONAL THERAPIES
In recent years, many improvements have been made in screening programs and diagnostic techniques to detect cancer. New and more effective drugs are now available for cancer treatment and cancer is no longer considered an automatic death sentence (Benjamin, Simone, Traub & D'Epiro, 1998). The media has played a large role in disseminating information and urging early screening procedures, which has resulted in patients taking a more active role in their own health care. In spite of these advances, many patients still seek alternative care as an adjunct to the increasingly high-tech, mechanistic world of modern medicine. Studies show that ne...