WHB-GHA AND CAMs
COMPLEMENTARY & ALTERNATIVE MEDICINES INSIDE THE GLOBAL HEALTH ALLIANCE
Respect and support for traditional local and popular medicines and related natural remedies. The WHB has as its fundamental statutory purpose the integration of traditional and popular medical traditions typical of each area and nation. And one of the ultimate goals of the WHB-GHA is the full integration of natural medicines within all global healthcare systems, which will meet citizens' growing demand for natural, traditional, ethnic and holistic healing in a safe medical context. To this end, the WHB seeks to raise awareness among global institutions and NGOs about the role that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in general and natural practices in particular can play in global healthcare. Holistic therapies and all CAMs first address the disease by trying to support and induce the individual's self-healing process. If recovery can occur from this alone, the likelihood of adverse effects and the need for high-impact, high-cost interventions are reduced.
It is this orientation towards self-healing and health promotion – improving health rather than defeating disease – that makes CAM approaches particularly appropriate. CAM, requested by many tens of millions of citizens, has the potential to humanize modern medicine and broaden its vision beyond disease, towards health and well-being in its broadest sense.
To achieve this goal, the WHB seeks to maintain working relationships with (1) all international associations in the field of natural, traditional, ethnic and holistic medicines, (2) all international associations in the field of complementary and alternative medicines, and (3 ) all relevant NGOs and international institutions, such as, speaking of Europe: the European Parliament, the European Commission, all the Working Groups on Medicinal Products of the Directors of Natural Medicines Agencies, the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare related to the European Pharmacopoeia.
The WHB-GHA works directly with the Associations that are part of it on topics of importance for the health, holistic and psychophysical and spiritual well-being professions; for education and training of all age groups; local development and the economic emancipation of the most disadvantaged sections of society, providing innovative suggestions and tools in the analysis and processing of problematic circumstances; educational and pedagogical methodologies; management of health emergencies or adverse natural events (epidemics, floods, earthquakes, famines, fires, etc.); means to carry out more complete planning coordinated with local, provincial, regional and international teams; internal negotiation tools and with the partners involved; basis for developing a monitoring and evaluation plan; project presentation tool; and seeking funding.
For the Health & Healthcare Project, the WHB-GHA has several subcommittees involving delegates from affiliated associations and training centers, as well as other professionals whose expert input helps improve the scientific basis of each type of healing practice. The subcommittees meet weekly.
Given the precariousness of the climate, the Project involves the creation of a network of plants for the soilless cultivation, in CEA (Agriculture in a Controlled Environment with access safety levels comparable to BSL-4 applied to the biocontainment of biolaboratories), of plants of interest for the extraction of primary and secondary metabolites necessary for the autonomous production of medicines and supplements according to the protocols of different local medical-pharmaceutical and phytotherapeutic practices, innovative options to enhance the global effort towards production, timely and equitable access and distribution of technologies and healthcare know-how, through local production.