The NIH Office of Alternative Medicine: What Has It Accomplished in Its 3 Years?

Abstract

Although its budget and capacity to provide funding is small, the presence of the NIH Office of Alternative Medicine is significant to those of us involved in alternative medicine, as it has done much for the visibility and growing interest in alternative medicine throughout the U.S. This paper gives us a brief review of several of the functions and accomplishments of the OAM since its inception in 1992. Most recent is the publication of a new book written by several hundred alternative medicine researchers and practitioners as contributing authors that was funded by OAM and published in March 1995 by the U.S. Government Printing Office: Alternative Medicine: Expanding Medical Horizons.