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In its first policy statement on the subject, the American Academy of

Pediatricians is telling its 56,700 member doctors today to get more

involved in counseling parents about alternative medicine.

The group, representing the majority of all board-certified

pediatricians, said doctors should become more aware of the vitamins,

teas, herbs and procedures used outside mainstream medicine and

should help parents evaluate the pros and cons of a particular

therapy.

Although the academy focused its recommendation on parents of

children with developmental disabilities and chronic disease, the

policy extends to parents of healthy children, too.

The organization acknowledged that up to one-third of Americans have

used alternative medicine in recent years and up to 50 percent of

children with autism in the United States may have been given some

alternative medicine.

Unconventional Autism Treatments in Spotlight

Parents are using vitamin supplements and other unproven biomedical

treatments to treat children with autism, says Dr. Sandler,

chairman of the academy's Committee on Children with Disabilities.

Sandler is medical director at the Huff Center at Graham Children's

Health Center in Asheville, N.C.

The unconventional treatments include the nutritional supplement

dimethylglycine, a mixture of vitamin B6 and magnesium. In some

cases, parents are getting prescriptions for antifungal medications

for their autistic children in the belief that a fungus may be

responsible for the disorder.

" So many parents of children with chronic illness and disability are

choosing [alternative medicine] and quite often pediatricians aren't

even aware of this, " Sandler says. " I think this is mainly true

because people in practice don't always ask what other treatments

their patients are seeking.

" The goal of these guidelines is to encourage practicing

pediatricians to continue working from a scientific perspective, to

provide information on treatment options and to help protect against

negative bias against alternative medicine. "

Among the recommendations, the association is advising doctors to:

Seek outside information and share it with families.

Evaluate the scientific merits of specific approaches.

Identify risks.

Avoid dismissal of alternative medicine in ways that communicate a

lack of sensitivity and concern.

Guard against becoming defensive.

Assist in monitoring a therapy if an alternative medicine is

endorsed.

The recommendations are being published in the March issue of the

medical journal Pediatrics.

Although many pediatricians provided input and criticisms to the

published policy statement, Sandler says no one involved challenged

the idea that pediatricians should become more fluent in alternative

medical practices.