Absolute Beginner's Guide to Alternative Medicine

According to a random survey conducted in 1997, 42% of Americans sought out and used one or more types of medical interventions that were not taught in medical schools and were not generally available in U.S. hospitals. This represented an eight percentage point increase over the 1990 results of the same survey. While the vast majority (96%) of these people were also seeking conventional treatment for their health problems, less than 40% of these people told their conventional doctors what they were doing. Clearly, something’s going on with alternative medicine.

More than half of these Americans paid for the entire cost of treatment themselves, contributing to the estimated $27 billion spent on alternative medicine treatments in 1997—almost equal to U.S. consumers’ out-of-pocket expenses for conventional physician’s services in the same time period. In total, Americans made 629 million visits to alternative healers in 1997, nearly 243 million more visits than to all U.S. primary
care physicians. While no comparable survey results have been published since then, all indications are that Americans have continued to embrace alternative therapies, most likely at an accelerating rate. Clearly, alternative medicine is a big business.

The mainstream medical community can no longer ignore alternative therapies. The public interest is extensive and growing. You have only to look at the proliferation of popular health books, health food stores, and clinics offering healing therapies to realize that this interest cannot be dismissed. In other words, Americans want something more than biomedicine, and they are willing to pay for it.

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