Weekly Comment

Welcome to PD’s weekly comment feature. This week’s contributor is Marcus C Blackmore AM, Blackmores’ Executive Director.

Why industry has a responsibility to invest in research

THE momentum of evidencebased natural medicine must be more than marketing claims – it must be underpinned by a strong program of research so that the body of clinical evidence will continue to grow. This journey of discovery will continue – my father used to remind me that the quest for better health is neverending.

One of the areas where we have a knowledge gap is to understand the reasons people use naturopathy and other complementary medicines, how they make decisions about the medicines and the therapies they use and how practitioners including naturopaths connect and communicate with mainstream hospital and primary care systems.

The Australian Research Centre in Complementary and Integrative Medicine at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS: ARCCIM) is seeking to progress this important work.

That’s why my wife, Caroline, and I are proud to partner with BioCeuticals to contribute $1.5 million to ARCCIM to support research into naturopathy and other complementary medicine.

Our contribution does not reflect either generosity or goodwill. It is because we have an unswerving and ongoing responsibility to our consumers and to the practitioners who treat them.

I passionately encourage our friends and colleagues across this industry to seek to fulfil their social obligation by investing back into the community who support us.