Complementary Alternative Cardiovascular Medicine

Chapter 16 / A Guide for Physicians 265
Table 6
Information Portals
Intramedicine
http://www.intramedicine.com/
Intramedicine is relatively new portal focused on integrative medicine. The
company provides clinical data on integrative therapies that have been
scientifically validated, supported by a database of resources, including Chinese
medicine formulas. The resources are available through paid registration. The
only products for sale on the site are publications, courses, and electronic
resources.
WebMD
http://my.webmd.com
WebMD has proved one of the enduring dot.com sites and provides current
health news on the home page. There is a strong emphasis on health and wellness,
including a section by Dean Ornish, MD, who developed the program to reverse
heart disease by diet and lifestyle changes. Sponsors include pharmaceutical
companies, and all information is interspersed by advertisements.
This is a very unstable group of websites that is continually changing and varying in
quality. Many of these dot.coms went out of business with the downturn of the economy
at the beginning of the 21st century, including the Dr. Koop site. Most of the portals also
sell products. They generally try to keep people on their site by use of frames (providing
information from other sites within a window so that it appears to be coming from their
own site, with the goal of preventing visitors moving on to another site). Much of the
licensed information is only available through paid subscription. A small cross-section
of sites that provide CAM information resources is listed below. All have well qualified
professional advisory boards.