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Complementary and alternative medicine

These FAQs relate to a media release dated 1 April 2004 - "Complementary and alternative medicine information on the web"

Questions and Answers

What is www.cam.org.nz?

Who has www.cam.org.nz been established by?

What information does the website provide?

What information is on the website now?

Can articles referenced in the evidence summaries be obtained?

Why use www.cam.org.nz?

Who will use www.cam.org.nz?

How is the evidence selected?

How are levels of scientific evidence assessed?

Who is New Zealand Health Technology Assessment?

What is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)?

How many people use CAM?

Is www.cam.org.nz connected to the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health (MACCAH)?

Is the website connected to the proposed Trans-Tasman joint therapeutic products agency?

Would the CAM website stop a situation like with Pan Pharmaceuticals happening again?



What is www.cam.org.nz?

www.cam.org.nz is an online searchable website resource designed to be New Zealanders’ first port of call for evidence-based information on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatments. It provides evidence-based information on the efficacy and safety of a range of CAM treatments as well as a ‘safety alerts’ page.

The ‘safety alerts’ page contains links to warnings or recalls about complementary/alternative products posted by Medsafe (which ensures the safety and quality of therapeutic products) or by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.
Who has www.cam.org.nz been established by?

The Ministry of Health commissioned New Zealand Health Technology Assessment (NZHTA) to establish and maintain the website. NZHTA is a specialist unit of the University of Otago and is based at the Christchurch School of Medicine.
What information does the website provide?

www.cam.org.nz provides easy-to-read summaries of the evidence on CAM treatments.

These are aimed at the general public and bring together existing research findings. The website also provides links to those overseas evidence-based websites on CAM assessed as providing up-to-date, accurate, and objective information on CAM.
What information is on the website now?

CAM includes a wide range of therapies, and overtime the website will be expanded to cover as many of these as possible.

As a starting point, the focus has been on providing information on five key therapies: acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine, homeopathy, and osteopathy. Specific topics have been chosen on the basis of relevance to consumers. These are:

It is anticipated that the following topics will be added within the next few months:

Can articles referenced in the evidence summaries be obtained?

The PubMed database (part of the US National Library of Medicine) has a summary of many (but not all) of the references used in the evidence summaries on www.cam.org.nz. Full articles can be obtained via your local library (there is likely to be a charge for this service).


Why use www.cam.org.nz?

-Reliable information source:

With so much information available on the internet, it can be hard for the public to know which information sources to trust. www.cam.org.nz provides high-quality information on CAM - all research cited on the website is evaluated against scientific principles for its quality (see below). In addition, the website provides links to other information sources that have been evaluated as being up-to-date, accurate, and objective.

-Information for consumers:

While a number of websites provide evidence-based information on mainstream medical and/or CAM treatments many of these websites uses technical jargon, and do not always provide the type of information that consumers are interested in. www.cam.org.nz provides summaries of evidence in plain language that lay people can understand.

The Ministry of Health commissioned www.cam.org.nz to meet these criteria. All information on the website has been tested by a consumer group.


Who will use www.cam.org.nz?

The website is aimed at a wide audience including consumers and health practitioners of all disciplines.


How is the evidence selected?

A four-step approach is used to identify and assess the information used in evidence summaries:
  1. Key databases accessible over the Internet are searched for all relevant information on the topic of interest.
  2. Systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials are identified and copies of the reviews obtained. When no systematic reviews are available for a particular topic, information from randomised controlled trials is summarised. In the absence of randomised controlled trial studies, uncontrolled studies and other sources of information are assessed (see the table below for summary of levels of scientific evidence).
  3. The quality of each systematic review is then assessed using a research quality assurance tool (CASP - Critical Appraisal Skills Programme). This tool takes into account how comprehensive the review is, study quality, statistical precision, the size of the treatment effect and the relevance of the evidence.
  4. Data from the reviews are then summarised and incorporated into evidence summaries.

The information reviewed for each evidence summary is limited to English-language resources, with the exception of those foreign language trials identified by systematic reviews. While other non-English language studies may exist, they have not been included at this stage, because of their relative inaccessibility.


How are levels of scientific evidence assessed?

The levels described in the table below are a way of summarising study designs according to their ability to minimise or eliminate bias. Level I indicates those studies that are the best at minimising or eliminating bias, while findings from studies in Level IV are likely to be biased to some degree.

Table 1: Levels of scientific evidence


Level of evidence
Study design
IEvidence obtained from a systematic review of all relevant randomised controlled trials
IIEvidence obtained from at least one properly-designed randomised controlled trial
III-1Evidence obtained from well-designed pseudo-randomised controlled trials (alternate allocation or some other method)
III-2Evidence obtained from comparative studies (including systematic reviews of such studies) with concurrent controls and allocation not randomised, cohort studies, case-control studies, or interrupted time series with a control group
III-3Evidence obtained from comparative studies with historical control, two or more single arm studies, or interrupted time series without a parallel control group
IVEvidence obtained from case series, either post-test or pre-test/post-test


Who is New Zealand Health Technology Assessment?

New Zealand Health Technology Assessment (NZHTA) is a small specialist unit of the University of Otago, based at the Christchurch School of Medicine. NZHTA are specialists in evaluating research for its quality and rigour.

NZHTA already receives some funding from the Ministry of Health to produce evidence-based information on health and disability interventions and to assess health technology.

NZHTA has strong linkages with agencies overseas that review health technology and interventions, and has an international reputation for the quality of its work.


What is complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)?

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) can be defined as
Examples of CAM include acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine (such as echinacea and st johns wort), homeopathy, and osteopathy.


How many people use CAM?

The provisional results of the 2002/03 New Zealand Health Survey have revealed that approximately a quarter of New Zealanders visited an alternative health practitioner in the last year (23.7% of those surveyed).

NB. Alternative health practitioner is defined in this survey as “a practitioner who provides services that are generally not considered part of the mainstream health system. Also known as a complementary health practitioner.”

Source: A Snapshot of Health: Provisional results of the 2002/03 New Zealand Health Survey
Published in December 2003 by the Ministry of Health.


Is www.cam.org.nz connected to the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health (MACCAH)?

While the website is funded by the Ministry of Health, the information on the website is also intended to assist the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health in meeting its terms of reference (for more information about this Committee visit www.newhealth.govt.nz/maccah).


Is the website connected to the proposed Trans-Tasman joint therapeutic products agency?

No. The proposed joint agency will administer and enforce regulation of therapeutic products to ensure the quality and safety of medical products including complementary medicines. www.cam.org.nz provides evidence-based information on CAM treatments, but will not address specific products or brands.


Would the CAM website stop a situation like with Pan Pharmaceuticals happening again?

No – www.cam.org.nz provides evidence about CAM treatments (such as acupuncture, homeopathy), as opposed to specific products or brands.

However, the ‘Safety alerts’ page does contains links to warnings or recalls about complementary/alternative products posted by Medsafe or the New Zealand Food Safety Authority.



Go to the media release dated 1 April 2004 - "Complementary and alternative medicine information on the web"