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The herbal medicine movement is part of a much larger social trend in selfcare and healthcare that includes many other natural and traditional medicine modalities. The inclusion of these complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) modalities into standard practice or conventional medicine has become known as Integrative Medicine, a term originally coined by noted author and spokesperson Andrew Weil, MD.
One of the key people involved in moving the integration process forward has been John Weeks, an advocate and catalyst for increased communication and collaboration among various individuals and organizations involved in CAM. His former publication, Integrator for the Business of Alternative Medicine, was viewed by many as the journal of record for the emerging field of integration. After several years of sabbatical with his family in Costa Rica, Weeks is back in the United States and has re-entered the CAM dialog, this time with a web log (blog).
“The Integrator Blog News and Reports” is a new online newsletter (www.theintegratorblog.com) and discussion which focuses on building the community of interests among all who are involved in the fields of integrative medicine, CAM, and natural products. Among the contents of the premier issue, for example, are articles and comments on the following: efforts to reform the chiropractic profession, the Bravewell Collaborative-backed PBS show The New Medicine, two new professional training programs, an interview with the chair of the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, an initiative to explore CAM in reducing health disparities, and the multi-disciplinary traditional and alternative medicine practitioners’ project to develop a proposed new strategy for regulating herbs as “traditional medicines” in the U.S. (i.e., the Traditional Medicines Congress).
Weeks is no stranger to the herb community. While a vice president at Bastyr University in the late 1980s, Weeks was involved with the early maturation of the American Herbal Products Association, serving for a period on its board. He spent the 1990s until 2002 as a writer, organizer, consultant and speaker on the business of integration, engaged in diverse projects which inform his reporting and commentary.
He writes in his blog: “In default mode, most of us focus on the particular challenges of our own disciplines or stakeholder groups. We return to the known. Integration, by nature, asks us to open our peripheral visions. We are served to look at the whole of the field. We need to develop new fascia, new connectivity. Opportunities crop up in new places. These News and Reports are meant to be a kind of one-stop shopping to help you in your efforts to enhance integrated care in the environment you serve.”
The site through which Weeks offers the News and Reports includes forums and a poll. He tells HerbalEGram that he plans to “work with our networks to bring as many of the leaders in the field to the site as possible, to stimulate the cross-pollination of ideas and action.”
Weeks acknowledges that the most read section of the site to date is his brief report on his 3-year (2002-2005) working sabbatical with his family in Central America from which the The Integrator Blog marks his return. (It wasn’t all sabbatical. From home offices in Monteverde, Costa Rica, then Granada, Nicaragua, he directed the National Education Dialogue to Advance Integrated Health Care: Creating Common Ground, an initiative which involves educators from 12 disciplines.) Other useful resources on the site are back-issues of Weeks’ electronic News Files, 2 reports on Integrative Medicine Industry Leadership Summits, a progress Report from the National Education Dialogue, and papers he was asked to write on coverage issues by the White House Commission on CAM Policy and the National Institutes of Health. The News and Reports are offered for free, although Weeks asks readers to consider a voluntary subscription.
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