The Complementary and Alternative Medicine Information Source Book

During the past decade, American doctors and patients have increasingly come to rely on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Still, this highly heterogeneous collection of therapies remains unfamiliar to many people. Consumers, medical librarians and professional health researchers have a pressing need for reliable and authoritative information they can consult before making important medical decisions. Edited by Alan Rees, The Complementary and Alternative Medicine Information Source Book does much to satisfy that need, identifying books and pamphlets, journals, newsletters, Internet resources, CD-ROM databases, and several hundred organizations and Web sites devoted to CAM. Undoubtedly, the book is a very good guide for anyone seeking printed and electronic information on CAM. The book has nine sections. The first, ‘Complementary and Alternative Medicine: A New Dimension in Medical Consumerism’, provides a definition of CAM, explains the circumstances when CAM is appropriate, surveys current research on such issues as safety and the relationship between mainstream medicine and CAM, cites some of the criticism of alternative medicine and discusses the availability of information. The second section, ‘The Best of CAM Information Resources’, lists 61 books, magazines, newsletters, online and CD-ROM databases, Internet sites, and several kinds of personal health software, for both laypersons and professionals. Resources are assigned grades according to a number of criteria, including authority, credibility, comprehensiveness, readability, ease of use and the provision of further sources of information. The third section, ‘CAM Resource Organizations’, offers a list of educational, professional, academic and governmental organizations, institutes, foundations and centers, together with detailed contact information and URLs. The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sections provide information about, respectively, magazines and newsletters, pamphlets, professional books and periodicals, and CD-ROMs. The eighth section, ‘CAM Sources on the Internet’, is a very important part of the book because in recent years the Internet has been flooded by information on the subject and some guidance has become crucial. Not only does the author of this section, Tom Flemming, describe a variety of both comprehensive and specialized CAM Web sites, he even grades them. He also discusses how to evaluate and use CAM Web sites, summarizes education about and use of CAM, comments on online databases, and speculates about the future of CAM on the Internet. The ninth section, ‘Popular Books on CAM’, reviews 350 titles published since 1998. The book’s appendices provide general information about alternative medicine and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reproduced from the center’s exemplary Web site. This book is highly recommended. It not only contains a great deal of information, it also discusses key issues in searching for and applying information about CAM, organized to suit the needs non-specialist readers. The outstanding qualities of the book are outlined below.