Pi-Consulting

Americans are spending $27 billion a year on alternative medicines, the US government estimates. The attitudinal basis for this migration from mainstream medicine is complex. Not all the people switching their allegiance to non-mainstream treatments seem to care that there is little evidence that they work, or reassurance that those offering them know much about curing what ails them. Some experts are suggesting that the shift is an expression of disappointment and disillusionment with conventional medicine and its practitioners. Many sufferers are shrugging and turning to advice from family, friends and natural-remedy information sources. Most know that there is little official oversight of there treatments and prescriptions, yet in 2004 a staggering 48% of all adult Americans resorted to at least one alternative or complementary therapy. Aside from waning faith in the healthcare system in general, and doctors in particular, there is also “a powerful element of nostalgia… for home remedies… combined with an idealized vision of what is natural and whole and good”, according to Dr. Linda Barnes, an anthropologist at Boston University’s medical school. Such ‘nostalgia’ harks back to the words of Hippocrates, (he of the Hippocratic oath), who said “wherever the art of medicine is loved, there also is love of humanity”. Pharmaceutical companies please copy. (Source: New York Times, Pi Market Research).