Which Physicians Use Complementary or Alternative Treatments?

In a Medscape commentary,[22] Paul Offit, MD, Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, pointed out that since its founding in 1992, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) "has received about $1.6 billion of federal money to study a variety of things...[T]he disappointing part of these studies is that they are not based on any biological principle. In fact, they seem to hark back to a much more distant time, before we really understood the pathophysiologic basis of diseases and were able to direct treatments towards them." Despite such limited evidence, 38% of adults in the United States are using some form of alternative medicine, according to NCCAM.[23] This finding matches the Medscape survey responses, in which, regardless of generation, about the same percentage of physicians (37% of those 45 and under and 38% of those 46 and over) admitted taking CAM treatments for medical conditions. There were gender differences: 48% of female physicians and 32% of male physicians say they have used CAM therapies.