Before and after CAMbrella

Abstract

The idea of fostering CAM in terms of an EU-funded project was influenced by SST’s research and EU project work in the field of occupational health. At the Viennese Academy of Integrative Medicine it was Wolfgang Marktl and Bettina Reiter who searched for potential international partners willing to support a CAM project at EU level. The first meeting for ‘CAM in FP 7’ (European Research Frame Programme No. 7) took place in June 2004 in Vienna, where 15 participants from 5 European countries met to make themselves familiar with FP 7, which at that time was in an early preparatory stage, and discussed ideas on how CAM might be integrated in the next framework program. It has been decided that a European umbrella organization consisting of institutions that are interested in supporting CAM research should be established in order to organize the work of the research groups for CAM in FP 7. In the course of these efforts, EURICAM (European Research Initiative for Complementary and Alternative Medicine) was set up, developing new ideas on how to promote CAM research on an institutional level. The results were presented at international conferences, e.g., a symposium in Exeter in November 2004, or at different CAM research meetings, e.g., the Forum Meeting in Essen in January 2005. Contact was established with other umbrella organizations of CAM at European level, such as the ECPM (European Council of Plurality of Medicine), EFCAM (European Forum for Complementary Medicine), ECHT (European Committee for Homeopathy), and ECHAMP (European Coalition on Homeopathic and Anthroposophic Medicinal Products). Several meetings with stakeholders were held in Brussels where potential political efforts had been discussed, aiming at supporting a legal basis for CAM research. The EPHA (European Public Health Alliance) supported these efforts and provided important information on relevant European institutions. The preparatory FP 7 documents (amendment proposal June 28, 2006) contained an amendment on CAM where the aims and scope of CAM research were defined as follows: ‘Translating clinical research outcome into clinical practice. To understand how to create the knowledge base for clinical decision-making and how to translate outcomes of clinical research into clinical practice and especially addressing patient safety and the better use of medicines (including some aspects of pharmacovigilance and scientifically tested complementary and alternative medicines) as well as the specificities of children, women and elderly population.’ On December 18, 2006, the European Parliament and the Council made the final decision on CAM in FP 7. After 3 years of effort, the CAM research community finally had the opportunity to launch an EU-funded CAM research project. The development of the research program had to be accelerated in order to be prepared for the call for CAM research projects. For this purpose, first strategy meetings of researchers took place and meetings with scientific officers in Brussels were held. Vinjar Fonnebo, member of the research group around FP 7, proposed to link EURICAM more closely to ISCMR (International Society for Complementary Medicine Research). With this aim and in agreement with his colleague George Lewith, a meeting at the Munich CAM conference in May 2007 was organized in order to structure the cooperation. In parallel, a first ad-hoc working group of CAM researchers started to develop first ideas for a CAM research project with the intention to be submitted as a proposal to get a grant under FP7 eventually. In the end, the application of the CAMbrella group has been successful, and the project could start in January 2010.