Frankly, I have to disagree. Alternative medicine, especially herbs, are indeed Medicine and have been for hundreds of years. From where do you think we got aspirin - the active ingredient was discovered in willowbark, a common painreliever and fever reducing herb. Digoxin (sp?) anyone? active ingredient -digitalis - found in foxglove, used for many years to help w/ heart issues. The reason herbs aren't more studied is anyone can grow and use them; unless they can isolate an active ingredient - like sacillyic acid or digitalis - and reproduce it in labs - it's not viable to develop a product, and who pays for medical research like this? Drug companies. There is no benefit to them to research herbs and plants that anyone can grow and dispense. Also, many herbs are slow things, that help regulate body systems. They are not super-powerful, fix, mask, or treat just the symptoms really quickly - things. Our society is fast paced, we want to feel better now. Western medicine is then quick and dirty. You won't feel good, but you MAY be better, or at least, feel better soon. Herbs and things take longer, you may not notice results right away, b/c they work slowly and improvements are incremental.

There's alot to be said, as the author points out, for feeling better, and not miserable, which is why "alternative" medicine is often termed "complimentary", meaning it works with western medicine to help it work better, and make the patient feel better whilst going through painful and difficult sorts of treatment. A lot of so-called scientists want to call anything "magic" that they can't explain, like touch therapy, music therapy, etc. It seems to make a difference, but they can't see how, or why it would, it is difficult to study under scientific terms, because even if it doesn't lessen pain, but the subject says they do somehow "feel" better, makes no sense to the scientific brain. I think many more people would be more compliant with their western medicine "regimes" if they truly felt better while doing them. Who wouldn't rather have a massage then a bunch of injections and iv's?