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Infrasound normally results in pessimistic responses, describing it as a complicated problem, bringing great misery to those exposed, whose difficulties arise from adverse subjective effects, compounded by inadequate assessment methods. But Chinese traditional medicine claims therapeutic uses for infrasound, produced from the hands of the "Qigong Masters", using an oriental system which many in the west, nurtured in experimental science and cause-and-effect medicine, find difficult to understand, and even more difficult to accept. There have been recent changes in the UK, following a report on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. It was estimated that the growth of CAM in the UK results in use by about 20% of the population, with an annual expenditure in excess of �1.5 billion. A result of the report has been the acceptance that CAM has a place in the health care of the UK and that more should be available on, or at least recommended by, the National Health Service. A directory of CAM practitioners is being developed for use by NHS healthcare professionals (www. nhsdirectory. org).

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