Alternative medicine, evidence based medicine, bioethics

Abstract

Alternative Medicines (complementary, parallel, "mild") being in fact mostly therapeutical practices different from those of the classic medicine, seem to continuously multiply; for the time being, there are over 50 types of this kind of "medicines". Most of these practices are not scien?tifically based, many of them being not only non-efficient but even dangerous. If the classic me?dicine is practiced within a rigorously legislated frame, the alternative medicines aren?t subject to any control, the advertising possibilities are unlimited and the ethical frame doesn?t prac?tically exist. This happens, under the circumstances in which, for instance, to introduce a new medicine or therapeutical procedure, it takes a long way, based on rigorous checking, in order to prove the therapeutical effects and to identify the possible harmful effects. Evidence Based Medicine is a new concept in medicine practice that, on the one hand, will consolidate the scientific basis of practice in classic medicine and on the other hand will determine the necessary rigour of alternative practices and the elimination of the non-efficient, fanciful, dangerous ones.