The Latin American Panorama of Holistic, Complementary, and Alternative Medicines

PAPALINI VANINA

Kottayam, Kerala

Congreso; Sixth Euro-India International Conference on Holistic Medicine. Organized by Institute for Holistic Medical Sciences; 2016

Institute for Holistic Medical Sciences (Kerala, India) & Ayurveda und Venen Praxis Dr. Mathew (Austria)

The combination of biomedicine with other paradigms of health care, such as holistic medicine, ethnomedicine, folk remedies, and even self-treatment is a frequent occurrence in Latin America. They involve diverse types of medicine, from the practice of folk medicine or the popular medicine of urban and rural peasant populations to indigenous shamanism or home remedies. In contrast, complementary and alternative medicine, more and more widespread in developed countries, refers to a wide range of practices that, in the West, are not part of traditional ways of healing. Currently, these medicines are not integrated within the dominant health system. This is the case of Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, and numerous treatments, the majority with oriental roots, that can be applied separately, such as reflexology, chromotherapy, reiki, shiatsu, acupuncture, and others. One of the relevant aspects to be analyzed is the mixture of New Age with local cultures. The beliefs and health care practices of the New Age do not run parallel to or unconnected to local religious traditions, but rather, on the contrary, they show predilection for the traditional. Because of these mixtures, in each country the therapeutic approaches trace their own trajectories, admitting a certain degree of syncretism. This relationship with religion has been counterproductive to the scientific validation of these medicines. In relation to health care, the paradigm of cultural diversity has encountered growing and uneven acceptance. Particularly in the field of medicine, popular customs and knowledge, as well as traditional, ethnic, alternative, complementary, and holistic medicines are in large degree rejected by institutions, showing the limits of the implementation of medical plurality. The positions of biomedicine expressed through health organizations and professional organizations have responded reactively to any kind of health care and treatment with other rationality. The opinions expressed by official entities, however, can differ with the opinions of health specialists. We can typically identify four positions, in a progression that goes from one extreme to another: a) Rejection; b) Complementarity; c) Conversion; d) Pluralist Integration In all cases, health organisms face the challenge of establishing criteria of safety, efficacy, quality, access, and rational use of these medicines, as well as the continuous effort to achieve dialog among the different medicines and their actors and intercultural health administration, a pending issue in much of Latin America.