Complementary? Alternative? Where does Christian Science fit in?

Moving the Needle

In my blog post of April 28^th, I discussed The Cure Within, a book by Harvard professor Anne Harrington about the history of Mind-Body medicine.

Pulling the thread of mind-body medicine on the web, I quickly encountered the term CAM – complementary and alternative medicine and found that on April 26^th the National Institutes of Health launched a website to help those seeking CAM “evidenced based information”.

NIH is part of the Department of Health and Human Resources and is made up of many research centers that focus on traditional medical remedies for meeting health challenges.  The fact that the NIH has:

1. Recognized the level of interest in alternative medicine
2. Has as one of its research centers – National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)
3. Set up a web site for health professionals and consumers to provide information about advances in CAM

…all of this indicates movement in thought away from treating the body as an object to recognizing that there are many American tax payers that are looking for answer beyond what traditional medicine offers.

As of now, Christian Science is not listed/recognized as one of the alternatives under the NCCAM (CAM) umbrella.  Christian Science though, has offered a prayer based, non-medical approach to healthcare for thousands since the publication of the first edition of Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy in 1875.

Lt Roger Whiteway, USS Independence (CV-62) 1972

As a third generation Christian Scientist I have seen the effects of this treatment in healing of short term and chronic physical challenges.  An example, a hernia that was diagnosed by a flight surgeon when I applied to Navy flight school when I was about to graduate from college was healed within thirty days and I was accepted.  I flew the A6 Intruder, a carrier based aircraft for many of my twelve years of active duty, and was required to have annual flight physicals with never any evidence of that problem.

I’d love to hear your comments, particularly in the Australian context.