Americans like their complementary and alternative medicine. While there are still those that think anything outside of mainstream healthcare is pure quackery [1], a rapidly growing segment of the population is more than willing to put its money and its health in the hands of acupuncturists, herbalists, aromatherapists, energy healers, and massage therapists (not to mention reflexologists, yoga [1] therapists, chiropractors, cranial sacral therapists, and others).

According to a recent article in the New York Times [2] (stories in mainstream media are additional proof that alternative medicine is attractive to more than the new age sect), Americans spend $27 billion a year on alternative and complementary medicine. This spending can be a small as the purchase of an echinacea [3] cold remedy to the alternative cancer treatment that Coretta Scott King [4] pursued.

This shift to alternative medicine is motivated by a profound disappointment in conventional medicine, hence the article’s title, When Trust in Doctors Erodes, Other Treatments Fill the Void. “Haggles with insurance providers; conflicting findings from medical studies; and news reports of drugmakers’ covering up product side effects [5] all feed their disaffection, to the point where many people begin to question not only the health care system but also the science behind it,” writes reporter Benedict Carey.

Image: Besttreatments.org