[Strshps1MoreTim]

I have no idea who this guy is, but often "alternative medicine" is very effective. In poorer countries it's often performed by smart professionals, who are using experience accumulated over centuries or even millennia - what plants help what conditions, etc.

[mattstreet]

Professions who help people just by listening. It has been shown that most of the positive benefit people experience from many of these therapies is just the fact of having someone that cares (or at least appears to) listen to your problems for an hour and provide support.

[mkr-hn]

Palliative care is a part of mainstream medicine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliative_care

Another example of real alternative medicine becoming mainstream.

[illuminate]

"Alternative medicine" that works is called medicine.

You're trying to give quackery a respect it has not earned.

[Strshps1MoreTim]

Care to check a dictionary?

[illuminate]

Evidence based medicine is simply "medicine", no matter who performs it, whether it's a witch doctor, a MD or herbalist. There's no need for other terms.

[mkr-hn]

Do you have anything to back this up? A lot of people believing something doesn't make it true.