Consuming health: The market for complementary and alternative medicine

Abstract

A brief account of the collapse of PAN pharmaceuticals is used to identify the major interest groups in the market for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) products - individual consumers, CAM businesses, insurance companies, doctors, and governments. These interest groups are then described. It is argued that CAM use is primarily driven by individual consumers, but the final form of the market is produced by the intersection of interest group pressures. Finally, it is suggested there may be two consumer markets for CAM products: one oriented towards symptom relief and one towards health maintenance. Therapists are foremost in symptom relief and CAM medicaments foremost in health maintenance.