Lectures curated around FRONTLINE: Alternative Fix, a documentary that examines the explosion in popularity, and profitability, of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

Frontline examines the controversy over CAM and questions whether hospitals that offer alternative therapies are inappropriately conveying a sense of legitimacy to these largely untested and scientifically unproven treatments. This program traces the mainstreaming of alternative medicine to the halls of Congress and one U.S. senator's allergies. It also follows the money to examine the big business of herbal supplements. In 1994, Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), a controversial bill that limited the Food and Drug Administration's power to regulate dietary supplements at a time when the FDA was gearing up to increase its regulation of what has since become an $18 billion a year industry. Supporters claim that the bill protects the freedom of American consumers to take care of their own health by assuring access to a range of natural products. Critics say the bill was passed at the behest of the powerful supplement lobby, and that without regulation, many supplements are worthless at best, and dangerous at worst.