In 1997 Americans made 627 million visits to practitioners
of alternative medicine and spent $27 billion of their own
money to pay for alternative therapies. In contrast,
Americans made only 386 million visits to their family
doctor. It is estimated, by none other than the Harvard
Medical School, that one out of every two persons in the
United States between the ages of 35 and 49 years used at
least one alternative therapy in 1997. That is a growth of
47.3 per cent since 1990. This is spectacular by any means
and of great concern to conventional (allopathic) medicine
especially since the people using alternative medicine are
primarily well-educated, affluent baby boomers(1). The
trend to alternative medicine is repeated throughout
Western society. In Australia 57 percent of the population
now use some form of alternative medicine, in Germany 46
percent do, and in France 49 percent do. The growth of some
types of alternative medicine is indeed astounding. Between
1991 and 1997 the use of herbal medicines in the United
States grew by 380 per cent and the use of vitamin therapy
by 130 per cent. These are impressive numbers by anyone's
standard(1-3).
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