Stuttgart Integrative Health & Medicine
Declaration Originally endorsed by the participants of the International Congress for Integrative Health & Medicine, June 9-11, 2016 in Stuttgart, Germany
Background
Medicine today faces immense challenges: chronic and lifestyle-related diseases are overwhelming health systems; antimicrobial resistance has become a threat to human health; child and maternal mortality remain disproportionally high in low income countries; climate change and pollution is affecting human health; universal access to health services is still not assured in many countries; health care costs are rising without a corresponding improvement in health and wellbeing. The focus on disease treatment has diminished the focus on individuals as whole persons, and distracts from the intimate connection between the health of individuals, the health of our communities and the health of our environment.
The Paradoxical Struggle of Homeopathy in Spain
By Aina Marti, PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature, University of Kent
The study of homeopathy in Spain is going under a period of challenges as many institutions, which offer postgraduate studies in homeopathy, are facing strong pressure to cancel their courses due to, what the medical establishment calls, lack of scientific proof. Last March 2016, the University of Barcelona was surrounded by polemics regarding the cancellation of its MA in Homeopathy, which had been running for thirteen years, alleging reasons of ‘lack of scientific base’. Soon after, the Spanish College of Physicians cancelled its homeopathic studies after having been active for twenty-five years.
Integrative Medicine – who and what is integrated how and where to?
By Nora Laubstein
Currently everyone is talking about the term „Integration“: You have to integrate!
If we want to think about integration and naturopathy as one thing, we have to speak verbosely. The keywords associated are: national health system, health economy, USA, university, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), evidence-based medicine (EBM), and specialization and health professions.
There is a loud call in politics and the media for an urgently needed integration of so far foreign experiences. At the same time it is talked about a so-called dominant culture. We are able to recognize this dominant culture if we transfer this development to the section of health policy: the national health system and the health economy became the measure of all things for the EU-countries with clear rules and regulations.
Political Definition of “C A M”
On the occasion of its Annual Assembly in Frankfurt on 9 March 2016, the Membership of ANME e.V. adopted a political definition of CAM. This Definition was amended by the Association for Natural Medicine in Europe as follows:
“Complementary Methods and Alternative Medicine - CAM, as utilized worldwide, represent a variety of different natural methods and traditional medical systems based on knowledge, skills and practices derived from different theories, philosophies and experiences. They are equivalent working on equal fundament with different approaches. Complementary Methods maintain and improve self regulation and promote health in conjunction with medicine. Alternative medicine may as well diagnose and treat physical and mental illness.”