Academic journal
 | |
| Discipline | Alternative medicine |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Andrew W. Campbell |
| Publication details | |
| History | 1995-present |
| Publisher | InnoVision Health Media |
| Frequency | Bimonthly |
| Impact factor | 1.305 (2020) |
| Standard abbreviations ISO 4 (alt) · Bluebook (alt) NLM (alt) · MathSciNet (alt  ) | |
| ISO 4 | Altern. Ther. Health Med. |
| Indexing CODEN (alt · alt2) · JSTOR (alt) · LCCN (alt) MIAR · NLM (alt) · Scopus | |
| CODEN | ATHMF7 |
| ISSN | 1078-6791 |
| LCCN | 96641274 |
| OCLC no. | 61311563 |
| Links | |
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine is a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering alternative medical treatments. It publishes case reports, original research papers, and systematic reviews. It was established in 1995 by founding editor Larry Dossey, and is published bimonthly by InnoVision Health Media. The editor-in-chief since 2013 is Andrew W. Campbell.
Founding and content
When it launched, it was one of several journals about alternative medicine that were aimed primarily at doctors. It and similar journals carried advertisements for "unproven homeopathic products, shark cartilage, naturopathic remedies and other health food store items oriented toward cancer." David Gorski on the website Science-Based Medicine observed that United States Senator Tom Harkin (who was instrumental in drafting the legislation that funded the Office of Alternative Medicine but later criticized the self-same office's reliance on evidence-based testing) wrote two different commentaries in the journal's inaugural issue. He wrote:
In these two articles, Harkin basically introduced the new journal as a "journey—an exploration into what has been called 'left-out medicine,' therapies that show promise but that have not yet been accepted into the mainstream of modern medicine." and explicitly stated that "mainstreaming alternative practices that work is our next step." Unfortunately, he had a bit of a problem with the way medical science goes about determining whether a health practice—any health practice—works and railed against what he characterized as the "unbendable rules of randomized clinical trials." Citing his use of bee pollen to treat his allergies, went on to assert, "It is not necessary for the scientific community to understand the process before the American public can benefit from these therapies...."
... Truly, this was a profound misunderstanding of how science works.
Elsewhere on the website, Jann Bellamy, Florida attorney and founding member of the Institute for Science in Medicine, described the journal as being "of dubious scientific rigor".
Staff
The journal's founding editor-in-chief was Larry Dossey. In 2004, Mark Hyman was appointed as chief editor. In November 2008 David Riley, the journal's former medical editor, was appointed to the role. The editorial staff changed in 2010, leading the editorial board to resign; their names remained on the masthead as of 2013. As of 2013, the editor-in-chief was Andrew W. Campbell, and the journal's website listed him as practicing medicine in Texas; in 2011, he was barred from practicing medicine in Texas and was apparently practicing in Florida. The Texas Medical Board had taken repeated action against Campbell because he "relied on junk science, ordered inappropriate tests, and improperly diagnosed 'toxigenic mold exposure.'"
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Index Medicus/MEDLINE/PubMed, Science Citation Index Expanded, and Scopus. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2015 impact factor of 1.329.
References
- ^ Simpson, Richard K. Jr.; Bick, Dawn (1996). "Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine". JAMA. 275 (13): 1034. doi:10.1001/jama.1996.03530370072040.
- Cassileth, Barrie R. (June 1, 1996). "Alternative and Complementary Cancer Treatments". The Oncologist. 1 (3): 173–179. doi:10.1634/theoncologist.1-3-173. PMID 10387984.
- Gorski, David (June 29, 2015). "NCCIH and the true evolution of integrative medicine". Science Based Medicine.
- "ISM - Our Fellows". www.scienceinmedicine.org. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- Bellamy, Jann (December 24, 2015). "Guess who pioneered chemoprevention through diet?". Science-Based Medicine. Retrieved January 16, 2017.
- "Homeopathy". NPR. January 12, 1998. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
- "Press release: Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine Names New Editor in Chief". Integrative Medicine - A Clinician's. November 11, 2008. Archived from the original on February 11, 2009.
- ^ Beall, Jeffrey (December 26, 2013). "A Medical Publisher with Some Problems". Scholarly Open Access. Archived from the original on January 9, 2015.
- Barrett, Stephen (January 24, 2012). ""Toxic Mold" Guru (Andrew Campbell. M.D.) Surrenders Medical License". CaseWatch.
- ^ "Master Journal List". Intellectual Property & Science. Thomson Reuters. Archived from the original on September 26, 2017. Retrieved January 6, 2017.
- "Alternative therapies in health and medicine". NLM Catalog. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved January 6, 2017.
- "Content overview". Scopus. Elsevier. Retrieved January 6, 2017.
- "Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine". 2015 Journal Citation Reports. Web of Science (Science ed.). Thomson Reuters. 2016.