About the Slow Medicine International website
The term Slow Medicine could have different interpretations: some people think that the term refers to a sluggish medicine not suitable to struggle for the life of patients when necessary, others refer to a medicine refusing technology and innovation; others adopt these terms as a new expression to label alternative, holistic, natural medicine.
The Slow Medicine International website is created by three Slow Medicine groups operating in Brazil, Netherlands, and France with the aim of spreading Slow Medicine philosophy through a site written in English where a history of Slow Medicine could be retrieved, core article published in different languages are translated into English, and link to national website allow to explore activities done all over the world.
The associations recognizing themselves in the following principles and signing a cultural agreement will be accepted in the website.
Slow Medicine:
- recognizes EBM as the pillar of knowledge to discriminate effective from not proven treatments and procedures;
- recognizes health is a fundamental human right;
- considers health as the interaction between multiple elements: biological, psychic, spiritual, social, environmental;
- considers that human health is strictly connected to the health of the planet;
- has a mission synthetized by three key words: measured, because it acts with moderation, gradually and without waste; respectful, because it is careful in preserving the dignity and values of each person; and equitable, because it is committed to ensuring access to appropriate care for all, as Slow Food is working for a good, clean, fair food;
- adopts the systemic approach teaching us that health and disease are complex phenomena and the life of a person is more than the sum of the chemical reactions occurring in its cells;
- has not commercial interests and do not support any form of health care market;
- is free from conflicts of interests and considers all scientific activities should be free from conflicts of interests.
- does not propose absolute truths: starting from doubts that knowledge increases. Those who think they already know everything are fast by definition