Norwegian Law Brings Alternative Medicine to the Mainstream

Extract

On New Year’s Day, a groundbreaking new law took effect in Norway that legalizes alternative therapy for cancer patients as long as an oncologist approves the regimen beforehand. The law makes Norway the first Scandinavian country to accept and fully integrate alternative treatment into its nationally funded health care system.

The new law also establishes a voluntary public registry of alternative practitioners, an information clearinghouse of non-traditional treatments, and guidelines that propose honest and factual marketing of alternative therapies.

The legislation replaces the Medical Quackery Act, which had long been a thorn in the side of the nation’s alternative therapists. Passed in June 1936, the Medical Quackery Act mandated that only trained medical doctors may treat people diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, contagious diseases, and other so-called “serious” ailments. It also stipulated that only dentists and medical doctors could prescribe drugs, perform surgery, deliver injections, and offer local and full anesthesia to patients.