Complementary Medicine in Israel

Abstract

In recent years, the status of complementary medicine in Israel has appeared frequently on the public agenda. The debates and the newspaper headlines concerned with this subject usually deal with legal aspects of the subject, including the relation between complementary medicine and the medical establishment. With the enactment in 1995 of the Compulsory Health Insurance Law, debate over the issue intensified, with the public divided over any proposal to make complementary medicine part of the services guaranteed by law. This paper addresses the current status of complementary medicine in Israel, describes the introduction of complementary medicine to Israel, attitudes toward it of both consumers and medical professionals, and the question of its legal status. While no comprehensive survey describing all aspects of this subject in Israel has yet been undertaken, this paper is based on a survey of the professional literature in Israel, especially that of the Israeli scientific-medical community, a survey of the general press, and an analysis of the health insurance law and its position with respect to the complementary medicine.

The association between socio-demographic characteristics and adherence to breast and colorectal cancer screening: Analysis of large sub populations

“…Every member, irrespective of health status, can purchase VSHI; the tariff is age-based and unrelated to health status [23]. According to reports published by the Israeli Ministry of Health, 74.4% of all Israelis and 87.8% of MHS beneficiaries own VSHI [24].…”

Factors Related to the Intention of Israelis to Use Complementary and Alternative Medicine

“…Over the past decade, despite the debate about the clinical efficiency of CAM (Frass et al, 2012), its consumption has been constantly on the rise, and in Israel in particular (Ben-Arye, Frenkel, Klein, & Scharf, 2008; Grinstein, Elhayany, Goldberg, & Shvarts, 2002; Mizrachi & Shuval, 2004). By 2007, 12% of the Israeli population was reporting use of CAM at least once a year (Shuval & Averbuch, 2012).…”

Extinction and Diversity in Alternative Medicine

“…Yet, our research found barely a handful of practitioners left in the Middle Eastern region who were familiar with an average of no more than 20 medicinal plants and who often rely on shepherds to identify them. The paradox lies in the fact that as we see in the paper by (Grinstein et al, 2002) in this issue (pages 437-443), CAM use in Israel itself has been growing dramatically and, in a relatively short time, has reached similar levels of usage and availability to those in Europe and the United States. The health product and herbal industry has grown to match.…”