Marginal to Mainstream: Alternative Medicine in America - Softcover

Ruggie, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521542227 ISBN 13: 9780521542227

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2004

Synopsis

Millions of Americans are using complementary and alternative medicine and spending billions of dollars, out-of-pocket, for it. Why? Do the therapies work? Are they safe? Are any covered by insurance? How is the medical profession responding to the growing use of therapies that were only recently thought of as quackery? These are some of the many questions asked and answered in this book. It describes a transformation in the status of alternative medicine within health care. Paving the way toward legitimacy is research currently underway and funded by the National Institutes of Health. This research is proving the safety and efficacy of certain therapies and the harm or inefficacy of others. While some therapies will remain alternative to conventional medicine, others are becoming complementary, and still others are busting the boundaries and contributing to a new approach to health and healing called integrative medicine.

About this title

Review

"[An] extremely comprehensive, detailed, and well-referenced look at the explosion of interest in CAM."
Annals of Internal Medicine

"A superb dissection ... the best sociological interpretation of [the] subject currently available."
American Journal of Sociology

Book Description

This book explains how research is legitimizing CAM in the eyes of physicians and facilitating its mainstreaming into health care. It explains what CAM is from the standpoint of informal knowledge, based on experience, beliefs and values, and formal knowledge based on science.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521542227
• ISBN 13: 9780521542227
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 250