Call to action: Traditional, complementary and integrative health COVID-19 support registry

New Rochelle, NY, April 9, 2020–The new, global Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Health and Medicine (TCIHM) COVID-19 Support Registry aims to capture key information on the case, treatment/supportive care, and outcome variables related to the use of integrative health products and practices in patients in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. A Call to Action describing the need for, purpose of, and intended use of the Registry is published in JACM, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers, dedicated to paradigm, practice, and policy advancing integrative health. Click here to read the Call to Action on the JACM website.

JACM Editor-in-Chief John Weeks issued the “Call to Action: Announcing the Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Health and Medicine COVID-19 Support Registry” to help launch the resource that was created by a global network of researchers. The registry is already backed by over a dozen practitioner organizations. While there remains no high-quality evidence to support integrative practices and natural agents against the virus, practitioners and consumers are experimenting with multiple natural health products and practices that existing evidence suggests might have preventive, supportive, complementary, or rehabilitative value.

The Registry is housed at the Portland, OR-based Helfgott Research Institute. Led by multiple NIH grant awardee Ryan Bradley, ND, MPH, Helfgott’s Director and an Associate Professor in the University of Washington College of Pharmacy, the Registry is anticipated to help characterize such care, report indications of potential value or harm, and serve as the basis of hypotheses for potentially promising treatments and protocols for COVID-19 management.

JACM Editor-in-Chief John Weeks states: “Non-biomedical strategies are widely in use relative to COVID-19. Governments in India, China, and elsewhere are promoting traditional methods for COVID-19. Governments in the West are silent or antagonistic, yet millions of their citizens and their practitioners are experimenting. In the midst of this, the Chinese government is crediting the apparently relatively quick turn-around in that country to the integration of traditional Chinese medicine with conventional biomedicine in 90% of their patients. If widely utilized, the Registry will cast needed light on strategies for COVID-19 and may prove useful for managing future health issues. We urge all traditional and integrative practitioners to participate. Why leave this stone unturned?”

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About the Journal

JACM, The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine is a monthly peer-reviewed journal published online with open access options and in print that is dedicated to research on paradigm, practice, and policy advancing integrative health. Led by John Weeks (johnweeks-integrator.com), the co-founder and past Executive Director of the Academic Collaborative for Integrative Health, JACM publishes human clinical trials, observational studies, systematic reviews and commentary intended to help healthcare professionals, delivery organization leaders, policy-makers and scientists evaluate and integrate therapies into patient care protocols, payment strategies and appropriate protocols. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the JACM website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Alternative and Complementary Therapies, Medical Acupuncture, and Journal of Medicinal Food. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.