The workshop was organised by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) of the European Parliament on 16 October 2017 and was chaired by Mr Alojz Peterle MEP and Ms Soledad Cabezón Ruiz MEP.

High demand for Complementary and Alternative Medicine

The subjects that were covered included the high demand of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) and the needs and attitudes regarding CAM among EU citizens, the current legal status and policies governing CAM provision in the EU, the number of health professionals working in this sector, common characteristics of CAM therapies, benefits and limitations of the CAM model and the biomedical model as well as the need to integrate both. In addition, the CAMbrella report, the state of affairs in CAM research and a roadmap for future research in this area, the resolutions of the World Health Assembly, the goals of WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014-2023 and their implementation.

Presentations

The presentations can be downloaded:

• Overview of CAM therapies in Europe 
  Dr Ton Nicolai - EUROCAM Spokesperson.
• The status of research on CAM across the EU
  Dr Wolfgang Weidenhammer - Coordinator of CAMbrella project, Technical University, Munich, Germany.
• The legal and policy framework of CAM in Europe 
  Ms Agnes Mathieu-Mendes - European Commission, DG SANTE, Deputy Head of Unit, Medical products: quality, safety, innovation.
• Integrating CAM into EU healthcare systems 
  Dr Stéphane Espinosa - World Health Organization WHO, Consultant in the Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine (TCI) Unit in the Department of Service Delivery and Safety (SDS)

Please find the workshop agenda here.

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The official document from the DG for Internal Policies of the European Parliament can be downloaded here.