The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has joined with National Library of Medicine -- both part of the NIH -- to create a massive database of literature on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
The free, web-based database offers access to more than 220,000 abstracts, references and some full text articles on alternative medicine. The database is called CAM on Grateful Med, the National Library of Medicine's free system that provides access to the MEDLINE database. MEDLINE covers 4,500 journals published in the US and overseas.
"This joint venture will offer health professionals, CAM practitioners, researchers, educators, and consumers ready access to a comprehensive database of journal citations directly related to complementary and alternative medicine," said Dr. Donald Lindberg, director of the National Library of Medicine.
PubMed has 120,000 users each day, conducting about 700 searches per minute, said a library spokesperson. In the past, PubMed users could search complementary and alternative journals, but the search was not very specific, even though the database included titles such as Holistic Nursing Practices, and the Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medical Practices. The library's advisory committee will start evaluating more CAM-specific titles to add to the vast database.
I have been searching the National Library of Medicine's database for the last 15 years, which significantly predates their Grateful Med Internet Interface.
If you have any computers skills and understand medical jargon this is THE database to use. It is the largest collection of medical articles and abstracts on the planet and you can search it until the cows come home at no charge. This puppy is absolutely free.
When I was searching in the 80s every single abstract I retrieved was charged for and a single search cost a minimum of several dollars, which would be quite a bit more now with the cost of inflation.
So the bottom line is that you can now search this engine for free to your heart's content. I highly recommend doing your own original research. The data is there. You just need to pull it out. To limit your search to the complementary medicine subset described above use the search field cam [sb]. For example, cam [sb] AND mercury will decrease your retrieved records from to 17,896 to 582.
Clicking on an article title brings up an abstract. Often, the user can link to the journal's Web site to get a full text of the article.
Most of the time this is the subset of the articles that will have the information you are seeking. The other articles may have some pearls, but generally they will be more research oriented.
It is important to recognize this subset is brand new . It was just implemented February 1, 2001.
To use it just go the National Library of Medicine website and click on MEDLINE in the left column.