Short answers, pulled from the story.
The United States National Institutes of Health established an office to study alternative medicine in 1992. This agency later became known as the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
A 2002 survey found that 36 percent of U.S. adults used some form of complementary and alternative medicine. Expenditures increased by 50 percent between 1990 and 1997 during this period of rapid growth.
Four children died in Australia between 2001 and 2003 because parents chose ineffective naturopathic homeopathic or other alternative medicines over conventional therapies. Direct harm results from adverse patient outcomes while economic harm causes monetary loss without health hazard.
Edzard Ernst concluded in 2011 that 95 percent of studied alternative treatments including acupuncture herbal medicine homeopathy and reflexology were statistically indistinguishable from placebo treatments. He published an estimate of 7.4 percent based on sound evidence though he believes the figure may be an overestimate.
Toxic heavy metals found in Ayurvedic products caused elevated blood lead levels in 40 percent of tested users. Incidents of poisoning attributed to use of these compounds occurred in the United States.