One aspect of complementary medicine that has changed dramatically in the last 10 years is the focus on validation of products and their claims. This has been driven on all fronts – by regulatory bodies, health professionals, consumers, and by complementary medicine companies seeking to gain a competitive edge. This drive to support traditional medicine claims with scientific underpinning is an enormous undertaking, often frustrated by lack of Government funding and lack of available intellectual property protection. It is nevertheless an important undertaking, one finding resonance even within the scientific-academic community judging by the ever-increasing number of publications on complementary medicine in the medical-scientific literature.
