This paper addresses the recent rise of the use of alternative medicine in Western countries, and it offers a novel explanation of that phenomenon in terms of cognitive and economic factors related to the free-market and patient-centric approach to medicine that is currently in place in those countries, in contrast to some alternative explanations of this phenomenon. Moreover, the paper addresses this troubling trend in terms of the serious harms associated with the use of alternative medical modalities. The explanatory theory defended here is then predicated on the idea that serious and avoidable harms predictably result from an extreme patient-centric model of medical practice that treats largely ignorant patients as consumers of medical products and services, when they are endowed with an essentially unrestricted power of freedom to choose treatments. Some important moral and epistemological consequences of this model are then articulated, and corrective measures are suggested.

中文翻译：

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认知偏差和以患者为中心的自由市场医学模型的可预测风险

本文探讨了西方国家最近使用替代医学的兴起，并从与当前实施的自由市场和以患者为中心的医学方法相关的认知和经济因素方面对该现象提供了新的解释在这些国家，与对这种现象的一些替代解释相反。此外，该论文从与使用替代医疗方式相关的严重危害的角度讨论了这一令人不安的趋势。此处捍卫的解释性理论基于这样一种观点，即严重和可避免的伤害可预见地源于极端以患者为中心的医疗实践模型，该模型将大部分无知的患者视为医疗产品和服务的消费者，当他们被赋予基本不受限制的自由选择治疗的权力时。然后阐明了该模型的一些重要的道德和认识论后果，并提出了纠正措施。