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2009-07-31 10:54:23
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE and MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writers Marilynn Marchione
And Mike Stobbe, Ap Medical Writers Fri Jul 31, 1:29 am ET
ATLANTA Americans spend more than a 10th of their out-of-pocket health care
dollars on alternative medicine, according to the first national estimate of
such spending in more than a decade.
Chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists and herbal remedies are
commanding significant consumer dollars as people seek high-touch care in a
high-tech society, the report released Thursday by the government shows.
Altogether, consumers spent an estimated $34 billion on those and other
alternative remedies in 2007, the report found.
"We are talking about a very wide range of health practices that range from
promising and sensible to potentially harmful," said Dr. Josephine Briggs,
director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the
federal agency that leads research in this field.
More research into which therapies work is critically needed, because the
spending on them is "substantial," she said.
The data, gathered in 2007 mostly before the recession was evident, don't
clearly reflect whether the economy played a role in spending on these
therapies. But Briggs noted there has been "speculation that as the number of
uninsured grows, there may be increased utilization of some of these
approaches, which tend to be relatively inexpensive."
Nearly half of those who use alternative medicine say they cannot afford
conventional care, according to government data published in a separate report.
Some consumer advocates say people are wasting money on some products that
rigorous studies have shown don't work. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, who leads Public
Citizen's health research, has long criticized the government for what he
considers lax regulation of prescription drugs and mainstream medicine. Yet, he
also sees problems with the widespread use of dietary supplements.
"People think they are cleared" by the Food and Drug Administration, he said,
when in fact they do not need proof of safety or effectiveness to go on the
market.
"Mainly, they're ineffective," he said.
The report is based on a 2007 survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention of more than 23,000 adults nationwide. An earlier report from
this survey, released in December, found that more than one-third of adults use
alternative medicine.
That includes a wide range of services from meditation and yoga to herbal
supplements, such as echinacea and ginseng. Vitamins and minerals are not
included in this report but will be addressed in a future one.
Pain was the main reason people tried massage, chiropractic care and other
alternative therapies. Among supplement users, most popular were glucosamine
for joint pain and fish oil to cut the risk of heart disease.
The new survey results focus on how often Americans use these things, and how
much they pay for them. The numbers show that alternative medicine accounts for
more than 11 percent of out-of-pocket spending on health care in the United
States.
The study found that about 44 cents out of every dollar spent on alternative
medicine was for products like fish oil, glucosamine and echinacea. Spending on
these products was nearly $15 billion, or about a third of what Americans spend
out-of-pocket for prescription drugs.
"I personally am pretty conservative about supplement use," Briggs said. She
believes that research her center has sponsored has affected consumer use.
After widely publicized studies showed the ineffectiveness of echinacea for
colds and St. John's wort for major depression, their use fell; fish oil use
has risen following some research suggesting it might help lower risk of heart
problems.
The survey shows about 35 cents of each alternative therapy dollar was for
visits to acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists and other
practitioners. That totals nearly $12 billion, or about one-quarter of what
Americans spend on visits to mainstream physicians.
"Some of the useful things chiropractors are doing amounts to physical
therapy," Wolfe said. "Medicine is beginning to realize how important physical
therapy is."
The last government estimate for out-of-pocket spending on alternative medicine
came from a 1997 survey. That research suggested $27 billion was being spent.
The new report concludes that 38 million adults visited alternative medicine
practitioners in 2007. They paid less than $50 per visit on average, but many
paid $75 or more for services such as acupuncture, homeopathy and hypnosis
therapy.
The average annual spending per person to see practitioners was about $122, and
the average spending on products was $177.
A whopping $3 billion was spent on homeopathy, a form of treatment that uses
highly diluted drugs made from natural ingredients and based on a theory
unverified by mainstream science.
Private insurance paid for about 43 percent of all alternative medicine in
2007, public insurance paid for 31 percent and patients paid for the rest,
according to a separate government report.
Dianne Shaw, a media relations worker at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, sees value in at least one form of alternative medicine
acupuncture. She says acupuncture helped her recover from a stroke-like facial
nerve paralysis that standard drugs didn't remedy. During an exam, one of her
doctors commented on her progress, and she revealed that she was getting
acupuncture.
"They said, 'Well I'm glad it worked,'" Shaw said.