Alternative Medicine Explored at Conference

By Cassie Ferguson

Gazette Staff

Faith can heal -- so long as it's accompanied by a healthy dose of modern medicine, said the majority of speakers at the Harvard-M.I.T. Conference on Alternative Medicine.

More than 400 students and faculty -- and passersby attracted by the free Shiatsu massages -- attended the weekend conference sponsored by the Harvard and M.I.T. Hippocratic societies and the Harvard Tai Chi Club.

"Despite incredible advances in conventional Western medicine, alternative medicine -- however much it remains debated -- continues to have a large impact on our society," said Joshua Jones '00, conference director and a history and science concentrator from Pforzheimer House.

That impact was detailed in a 1993 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The article said that one in three Americans turns to alternative therapy, which can range from meditation to acupuncture to aromatherapy. While the therapies themselves might be on the fringe, the money involved is enough to make the mainstream take note. According to the same study, Americans spend more than $10.3 billion a year on those alternative forms of health care.

Herbert Benson, MD '61, associate professor of medicine and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, opened the conference with a lecture comparing health care to a three-legged stool, with pharmaceuticals, surgery, and self-care making up the three legs.

Having faith that a therapy will work is a powerful drug in itself, said Benson. "The reason for a homeopathic cure working is not the homeopathy, but the belief in homeopathy."

Without discounting the "awesome cures" of modern medicine, he said, treatments need to include the personal aspects provided by alternative therapies, such as incorporating people's cultural and religious values.

However, he noted, "alternative medicine is generally not proven or it would not be alternative."

In addition to lectures and panel discussions, conference attendees took part in workshops where they explored alternative treatments, both near the mainstream and well outside out of it.

They learned about the benefits of learning to relax before surgery, tied themselves in human knots while attending the session on "adventure therapy," and felt one anothers' energy fields in a workshop on what's known as "therapeutic touch."

The herbally inclined discussed the differences between tinctures and teas and the efficacy of St. John's wort; others tried tai chi; and others heard about the benefits of aromatherapy. By far, the most popular hands-on offering was the 20-minute Shiatsu massages given on Sunday.

In the closing lecture, James Gordon '62, MD '67, chair of the Program Advisory Council at the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine, said that he's seen an "extraordinary" change in attitudes toward alternative medicines in the past 20 years.

He has also found that in recent years funding research into alternative medicine ". . . is an issue on which the far right and far left agree: the reason being that they've experienced it themselves."