CAM and the Medical Community Alternative, complementary, and integrative treatments are all part of a well-debated but poorly studied area of ​​medicine. Doctors in the American and European conventional medical communities have long been inclined to dismiss unconventional healing methods such as acupuncture, herbal supplements, and massage therapy as ineffective or downright crazy methods for treating disease. The medical community's views, however, appear to have little impact on the growing popularity of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) among patients. A growing number of people in the United States and Europe are turning to these treatments in addition to or instead of traditional Western medicine. The sheer popularity of CAM has forced the medical community to take a closer look at the acceptance of CAM in medicine. CAM includes a wide range of healing methods from acupuncture and massage therapy to herbal remedies such as St. John's Wort and Echinacea. Many of these remedies have been around for centuries. In the case of acupuncture, acupuncture regulations have existed in China and Japan for years. However, because many of these procedures have not been “scientifically” proven, Western medicine has largely rejected the remedies as effective forms of treatment. A professor of medicine at Rabin Medical Center compared CAM to the beliefs in magic and superstition that medicine relied on before modern scientific advances. "The profound model of alternative medicine is anthropocentric magic. The explanations of alternative medicine practitioners give patients a set of magical rules for controlling the physical world, rules that have the human at their core."(1). In this article, he argues that alternative medicine is fraudulent, impossible to prove in clinical trials, and therefore unacceptable even on the fringes of modern medicine. The arguments against have become increasingly stronger as acupuncture, holistic therapies and herbal remedies become popular. in Western markets. Most of these remedies and treatments have been around for centuries, so there must probably be some healing properties in these treatments. People turn to CAM treatments when Western medicine fails. CAM gives people more options and gives them hope of finding a solution. One argument in favor of accepting CAM is the psychological impact it has on patients. Herbal treatments and acupuncture give people hope of relieving their symptoms. An example of this can be seen at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. They provide cancer patients with acupuncture, massage therapy, yoga and other CAM services in addition to chemotherapy treatments.