RESEARCH ON TRADITIONAL MEDICINE USE AND TESTABILITY, IN ITALY Adamoli R., Durante A. 3rd European Colloquium on Ethnoparmacology - 29th May - 2 nd June 1996 Poiesis Center, Exodus Group, Milan, Italy Objectives - From 1993, an observational research to test use and testability, in an occidental cultural content like the italian, of HIV and AIDS therapies deeply-rooted in traditional medicine (TM) of different countries, referring in particular to phytotherapy (through plants with different sources - Peruvian, Brazilian, African, Australian, etc. - and ethnic medical use) e  Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Methods - Information, documentation and promotion activity (also with other companies and therapists realized) finalized to particular situations as Health Institutions, Infective Diseases Wards, TM practitioners and therapists, AIDS associations, relating to background, literature and experience of HIV and AIDS TM. Monitoring activities and/or opened follow-up studies or clinical survey of single therapists on 250 patients followed by different practitioners.
Results - Research drawn Italian situation related to HIV and AIDS Traditional Medicines actual use and it has individuated their limits and potentiality. Also, it allowed to show persons  positive response about life quality and less serious opportunistic diseases cures, difficulty to obtain viral load exams in continuos, difficulty to evaluate and read, in univocal way, clinical results relating to most recognized markers for evaluation of HIV infection evolution. Difficulty to compare of analogous but not standardized or titled products, sometime without quality and very expensive,  preclude a properly posology too. We also reported availability in MT experimentation on the part of some Infectious Diseases Wards, but an operative mediation among requested criteria and MT peculiarity is still to be found.
Considerations - Multiple plans intervention is necessary: therapists professionalism and formation in HIV treatment with TM; control and  intervention of available remedies quality; protocols definition to obtain comparing data respecting  single medical traditions and epistemological, methodological, diagnostic and therapeutic peculiarities; need to activate hospital research with the purpose to obtain data allowing  better knowledge; and economic accessibility; open studies among TM practitioners using common criteria and methodologies to obtain answers about clinical effecacy; necessity to create a more structured relationship among countries using TM and countries using biomedical  medicine, among practitioners, ethnic communities, fair trade nets, research institutions and Health Authorities.