Billions for alternative medicine
Americans spent $1.4 billion to study alternative medicine
However, Josephine Briggs, director of the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), is confident that a scientific approach is needed.
Since its formation, NCCAM has spent $1.4 billion from the federal budget on the study of alternative medicine funds for about 10 years.
According to Dr. Wallis Sampson, a professor at Stanford University, many methods of "treatment" are based only on people's imagination. For example, inhaling lemon and lavender does not promote faster wound healing. The research cost 374 thousand US dollars. And to understand that prayer at a distance does not cure HIV/AIDS, 666 thousand dollars were spent. To find out that massage improves the well-being of patients with severe forms of cancer, it took $ 1.25 million.
Josephine Briggs believes that research should be continued, especially since the annual budget of NCCAM is only $ 128 million (less than 0.5% of the budget of the US National Health System).
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2007, four out of ten Americans used alternative medicine. These are mainly supplements, breathing exercises, manual therapy, meditation and massage. The costs for these purposes, paid by the patients themselves, amount to $ 43 billion per year.
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26.01.2012