Re: Traditional medicine and the UNAIDS publications

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends, and Calle

With reference to the short exchange in which very dramatic views were put

forward on the issue of traditional medicine and the UNAIDS publication list

related perceptions of the UNAIDS, I would like to suggest that both these

views may be representative of the extremely polarised positions that

characterise the issue of traditional medicine among international

intergovernmental organisations working on health and those who are from

some nongovernment organisations working on the ground.

I have worked for some years now, as an indigenous health professional (this

term itself may be unacceptable to many but I use it without prejudice) one

of whose areas of activity focuses on policy and advocacy. In this

experience, I have come into some amount of contact with both UNAIDS and WHO

during the past decade.

Both views expressed by and Calle Almedal have some truth in

them (though not to the same degree, I might add) but I also feel that both

these views do not fully represent the whole picture. There are many very

serious problems within both UNAIDS and WHO regarding the prevailing

perceptions, approaches and engagements with traditional medicine. While it

is true that WHO has had some consultations with traditional healers,

particularly from thye African region, over the years and also has a

department of traditional medicine, (it had published some books and other

materials more in the nature of a developing pharmacopoiea but very little

towards policy and programme) these initiatives are far from appropriate in

actually institutionally and systematically engaging with the vast span of

traditional systems and indigenous systems of medicine ( or preferably

traditional healing or indigenous healing ) that have existed and still

exist today - enjoying tremendous legitimacy and validation among its

miillions of users/beneficiaries/practitioners. In this scope, some of us

may also include the so-called " alternate systems " , including homeopathy.

Furthermore, the institutional capacities to holistically and thoroughly

engage with these systems, in the manner that UNAIDS and WHO have engaged

with the classic western system of medicine, are still extremely limited.

The direction that these named institutions (there are others) are taking is

still heavily biased tyowards the classic western system, often informed by

very deeply ingrained, but not so overtly expressed, prejudices among the

professionals working within these institutions.

To state a recent example, WHO hosted an international consultation on the

health of indigenous peoples in 1999 in its headquarters in Geneva. Many

indigenous health experts working in both traditional and western systems

from all the regions, were invited to the consultation with took place in

the prestigious Executive Board Room. The meeting was organised with close

cooperation with an independent international indigenous health caucus known

as the Committee on Indigenous Health. Perhaps, as an initiative of this

sort, the consultation was one of the very first in the history of WHO. Many

of the WHO professionals who attended the consultation would have found the

prayers that preceded the rest of three-day formal proceedings " amusing " .

The experts arrived at a wide range of recommendations to State governments,

WHO's regional offices and the Executive.

However, though the World Health Assembly has been continuously calling upon

WHO and State governments to work in close consultation with indigenous

peoples to develop a comprehensive policy and prgramme during the

International Decade of Indigenous People (1995-2004), these calls have been

falling on very deaf ears. The reasons cited by WHO for its (in)activity are

many and repetitive - no data, no evidence, no acceptable (to WHO)

institutional frameworks to inter-face with, and suchlike. There is a

corollary to all this too - not cited - that WHO has presently very little

developed capacity to do this kind of job!

So, saying that these institutions have totally ignored traditional medicine

and are " bigoted " or have an office and published some materials is

inadequate. Yes, I do agree that, but because of UN recruitment policies,

these institutions have people in their professional staff who come from a

wide variety of cultural backgrounds and countries, in many of which

traditional systems of medicine are very legitimate, popular, accessible and

very acceptable. But this is not an adequate nor appropriate response to the

important issue that had raised even though the choice of his

words may have some room in terms of desirability in this forum.

Off the cuff remarks provoke off the cuff reactions. The issue suffers!

Regards,

D. Roy Laifungbam, MPH

Director, (Indigeous Health and Human Rights)

CORE, India

E-mail: <coremanipur@...>

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