More Dietary Supplements Recalled
The Hong Kong Health Department has issued a statement calling for the recall of eight dietary supplements that claim to be able to remove toxins from the body. The supplements have been removed from the market for making "unfounded" claims of curative effects or containing controlled substances.
The supplements in question are: Organic World Natural Brazilian Pau D'Arco Inner Bark; Beauty & Health; Yang Yan & Healthy; Koneil 30-Day Beauty Skin Rejuvenator; SQ2 Inner Pure; Sherbo Milk Thistle Extract; Nature's Secret Ultimate Cleanse; and Herbal Celluless.
According to the Health Department, four products used labels in breach of the country's undesirable medical advertisements ordinance for claiming to cure kidney diseases, diabetes and hypertension. The other four were found to violate Hong Kong's pharmacy and poisons ordinance for containing medicinal ingredients.
Tests conducted by health inspectors found that four supplements (Yang Yan & Healthy, SQ2 Inner Pure, Koneil Beauty Skin Rejuvenator and Nature's Secret Ultimate Cleanse) contained "detectable" levels of arsenic and lead. However, none of the supplements exceeded the department's safety limits.
Health Net Oregon Integrates Acupuncture into Basic Health Plans
Health Net Health Plan of Oregon, Inc. (HNO) has announced it will integrate complementary health care into its basic health plan. HNO Members will receive complementary health care benefits including acupuncture, chiropractic, naturopathy and massage therapy.
HNO provides group and individual HMO, PPO and point-of-service coverage to 100,000 members throughout Oregon and southwest Washington. HNO will use the provider networks of Complementary Healthcare Plans (CHP), including AcuMedNet; ChiroNet; NaturNet; and CHP Massage Therapy. "
We're proud to be the first insurer in Oregon to offer four alternative care services as a core benefit to all of our members," said Judy Irving, president and CEO of HNO.
"Health Net Oregon is the first health care organization in Oregon to do what others have wanted to do: begin integrating complementary health care into traditional benefit designs," added Richard Brinkley, CEO of CHP.
New Program Lets Residents Experience "The Other Half of Medicine"
Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois has begun offering its residents a one-month elective rotation in complementary medicine. The rotation is designed to introduce medical students to alternative forms of care such as acupuncture, homeopathy and herbal remedies.
Dr. Don Novey, director of the hospital's Center for Complementary Medicine, explained the reasons behind the program. "When physicians experience the complementary medicine rotation as part of their training, they are exposed to the other half of medicine. Once doctors have contact with one of the complementary treatments through this training, their comfort level increases, because their knowledge base goes up."
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
| Digital Exclusive
One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
| Digital Exclusive