{"id":950,"date":"2009-07-30T23:11:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-30T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/wpblog\/2009\/07\/what-would-34-billion-of-quack-money-buy-you.html"},"modified":"2009-07-30T23:11:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-30T23:11:00","slug":"what-would-34-billion-of-quack-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2009\/07\/what-would-34-billion-of-quack-money.html","title":{"rendered":"What would $34 billion of Quack money buy you?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lh6.ggpht.com\/_vvrFE7Rxtr0\/SnIohbOSAQI\/AAAAAAAADIo\/xiVjfjFsRdI\/s1600-h\/pile-of-money%5B4%5D.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px\" title=\"pile-of-money\" border=\"0\" alt=\"pile-of-money\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/lh6.ggpht.com\/_vvrFE7Rxtr0\/SnIoh9zQcPI\/AAAAAAAADIs\/ahM3ol0RCC4\/pile-of-money_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg?imgmax=800\" width=\"240\" height=\"166\" \/><\/a> Today the US <a href=\"http:\/\/nccam.nih.gov\/\">National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine<\/a> has issued a <a href=\"http:\/\/nccam.nih.gov\/news\/camstats\/costs\/nhsrn18.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a> that shows that Americans spend $33.9 billion out-of-pocket on complementary and alternative medicine per year.<\/p>\n<p>This is the figure that people spend on such things as homeopathy ($3B), yoga and qi gong ($4B) and non vitamin supplements ($15B). The report does not include purchases of vitamin and mineral supplements and estimates suggest this could triple this spend.<\/p>\n<p>The NCCAM has spent nearly a billion pounds on researching CAM and has failed to demonstrate the efficacy of any complementary medicine. Yes, its all quackery and these Americans are wasting their money.<\/p>\n<p>So, $34 billion is a big number. Let\u2019s try to put that into perspective:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Achieving the the WHO\u2013UNICEF <a href=\"http:\/\/www.who.int\/bulletin\/volumes\/86\/1\/07-045096\/en\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Global Immunization Vision<\/a> and Strategy for 2006\u20132015 would cost US$35 billion over those years. Children throughout the world need not die of measles, diphtheria, polio and other killers. <\/li>\n<li>Putting all America 3 and 4 year old children through <a href=\"http:\/\/preschoolers.about.com\/b\/2008\/09\/04\/preschool-good-home-enviornment-higher-math-scores.htm\" target=\"_blank\">preschool education<\/a> and thus reducing the need for remedial and special education, welfare and criminal justice services would cost $25 billion to $39 billion. <\/li>\n<li>Nearly 46 million Americans do not have health insurance and  do not have the access to health care services that the rest of the civilised world enjoys. $34 billion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nchc.org\/facts\/coverage.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">would ensure<\/a> there was cover for the uncompensated care that hospitals deliver every year. It would also provide about a third of these people with good health insurance cover. <\/li>\n<li>To reach the United Nations Development Programme <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wateraid.org\/international\/about_us\/frequently_asked_questions\/5907.asp\" target=\"_blank\">Millennium Development Goals<\/a> of halving the proportion of people without access to safe water or sanitation worldwide by 2015 about $30 billion needs to be spent annually. <\/li>\n<li>\n<p>More than one billion people in the world could have about a 10% pay rise as they only earn a dollar a day.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>There are 7 million people in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avert.org\/universal-access.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Sub Saharan African<\/a> in need of antiretroviral treatment. Costs of HAART can be as much as <a href=\"http:\/\/gateway.nlm.nih.gov\/MeetingAbstracts\/ma?f=102256448.html\" target=\"_blank\">$400 per month<\/a>. Supplying this treatment would cost $35 billion per year.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Malaria kills several million each year, the majority being children in Africa. It has been estimated that only $3 billion could bring this under control, sparing another $12 billion to remove the economic impact of lost work days, lost education and lack of development in malarial areas.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color:#454545;\">I am glad we have our priorities sorted out.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Today the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has issued a report that shows that Americans spend $33.9 billion out-of-pocket on complementary and <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/2009\/07\/what-would-34-billion-of-quack-money.html\" title=\"What would $34 billion of Quack money buy you?\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[178],"class_list":["post-950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quackometer.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}