On July 13, President Clinton announced his first appointments to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. The commission, established by the FY 1999 Omnibus appropriations bill, is assigned the broad task of making legislative and administrative recommendations regarding research; training and certification of CAM practitioners; insurance coverage; and other alternative medicine issues.
The commission, however, does not have any chiropractors. The chairman of the commission is Harvard-educated James Gordon, MD, who has a private practice in psychiatry and medicine in Washington, DC. Dr. Gordon previously chaired the program advisory council at the Office of Alternative Medicine. Dr. Gordon has been a clinical professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine in the departments of psychiatry and family medicine since 1980. He is a member of the NIH's cancer advisory panel and was the director of a special study of alternative services for the President Clinton's Commission on Mental Health. He has written extensively on the subjects of psychiatry and alternative/holistic care, and serves on the editorial boards of Alternative and Complementary Therapies and Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.
The closest "representative" chiropractic has on the commission is George DeVries III, president of the American Specialty Health Plans, the largest chiropractic HMO in the U.S.The remainder of the commission is comprised of:
George Bernier Jr.,MD, (Galveston, Texas) - hematologist/oncologist; vice president for education at the University of Texas medical branch.
William Fair,MD (Long Boat Key, Florida) - was chief of urology services, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City; emeritus professor of urology at the Joan and Sanford Weill Medical College of Cornell University; and Member Emeritus at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. Dr. Fair serves on the cancer advisory panel for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He is the editor-in-chief of Molecular Urology and the associate editor of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.
Joseph Fins,MD (New York, NY) - medicine/psychiatry; internist/director of medical ethics, New York Weill Cornell Medical Center; associate professor of medicine and medicine in psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Sister Charlotte Rose Kerr,RSM (Baltimore, MD) - registered nurse, a practitioner of traditional acupuncture, with master's degrees in public health and acupuncture; senior faculty member at the Traditional Acupuncture Institute; previously an assistant professor of nursing at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. Sister Kerr has been a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Alternative Medicine Program.
Wayne Jonas,MD (Alexandria, VA) - member of the department of family medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Edward Hebert School of Medicine; served as the director of the Office of Alternative Medicine for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the NIH; authored numerous publications on alternative and homeopathic treatment.
Dean Ornish,MD (Sausalito, CA) - founder/president/director of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute; clinical professor of medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and founder of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF; recognized by Life magazine as "one of the 50 most influential members of his generation" for his work to prove that heart disease is reversible by changing diet and lifestyle.
Conchita Paz,MD (Las Cruces, NM) - family medicine private practice; part-time faculty member at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and at the Southern New Mexico Family Practice Residency program.
Buford Rolin (Atmore, AL) - health administrator, Poarch Band of Creek Indians; member of Alabama Public Health Advisory Board; and a member of the board of directors of the Creek Indian Heritage Memorial Association.
Julia Scott (Washington, DC) - educated at Waterbury Hospital School of Nursing; president, National Black Women's Health Project; (NBWHP); was special assistant to the president and coordinator of the Adolescent Pregnancy Child Watch at the Children's Defense Fund.
Thomas Chappell (Kennebunk, ME) - co-founder/CEO of a company that produces "natural wellness products"; founder/CEO of the Saltwater Institute, a motivational company. He has authored The Soul of a Business and Managing Upside Down. He has a master's in theology from the Harvard Divinity School.
Effie Poy Yew Chow,PhD (San Francisco, CA) - founder of the East- West Academy of Healing Arts, the Qigong Institute, the American Quigong Association, and the World Qigong Federation. She has been the only qigong "grandmaster" and acupuncturist involved in the development of national health policies within HHS. She was on the first ad hoc advisory panel of the Office of Alternative Medicine at NIH, and has made over 250 media appearances and interviews in the area of complementary and alternative medicine. Dr. Chow received her training in traditional Chinese medicine and qigong in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, and the U.S. She is a registered public health and psychiatric nurse.
