Complementary medicines regulatory reform

Abstract

AUSTRALIANS ARE BEING encouraged to take greater responsibility for their own health care. The concept of self-care is being promoted widely, including the recent paper released by the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission1 and, more commercially, by the Australian Self Medication Industry (ASMI).2 Self-care in health refers to the activities individuals, families and communities undertake with the intention of enhancing health, preventing disease, limiting illness, and restoring health. These activities are derived from knowledge and skills from the pool of both professional and lay experience. They are undertaken by lay people on their own behalf, either separately or in participative collaboration with professionals.3 To enable Australian consumers to assume this responsibility, they should have the right to know and have access to the evidence-based status of any treatment they are considering, to enable them to make well-informed choices. This especially applies to medicines.