It has been estimated that consumers waste $500 million a year on medical quackery and another $500 million annually on some "health foods" which have no beneficial effect.
John F. Kennedy, Message to Congress on Problems of the Aged, February 21, 19631
THE NOVEMBER 1998 issue of the Archives of Surgery covers the topic of alternative medicine from a surgical viewpoint. The 10 scientific journals of the American Medical Association, beginning in 1990, have published theme issues on the following topics: Caring for the Uninsured and the Underinsured (1991), Violence (1992), Molecular Medicine and Genetics (1993), Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (1994), Emerging and Reemerging Global Microbial Threats (1995), Managed Care (1996), and Quality of Care (1997).