International workshop to discuss quality standards of indigenous and alternative medicine in multicultural settings in Meso-America

Background: Latin America has a thousand-year long culture in traditional medicine with fundamental ideas common to all the cultures. Treatment of diseases using herbs is part of their cultural heritage and traditional medicine is integrated in current be liefs about the causes of ill health. There is a political drive among the Mayas to strengthen the traditional beliefs as part of a growing political and cultural awareness. Several research institutions in Guatemala show an increasing interest in the fie ld of traditional indigenous medicine. There is, however, no national endeavour to coordinate appropriate research programs. We therefore propose a coordinated initiative of exploration and understanding of traditional indigenous medicine as a possible co ntributor to health advances in low- and middle-income countries, exemplified by Guatemala where the University of Tromsø in Norway and Instituto de Estudios Intéretnicos (IDEI) at San Carlos University in Guatemala already have a long-standing cooperatio n experience. Participants: Researchers that are presently working with alternative and indigenous medicine in Guatemala, Mexico and Norway. Program: The duration of the workshop will be three full days. The program will include plenary presentations fro m leading researchers, but the focus will be group work under the following three main themes: 1: Relevant ongoing research on alternative and indigenous medicine in Guatemala and Mexico. 2: Is it possible to establish culturally sensitive quality control procedures in alternative and indigenous medicine? 3: Possibilities for world wide cooperation between institutions that study the effects of alternative and indigenous medicine. Impact: The workshop will enable an international joint effort to establish well-reasoned outcome measures in clinical alternative and indigenous medicine with special emphasis on the Meso- American, Mayan cultural setting.