Is alternative medicine effective?

Alternative medicine can complement traditional medicine

Question: Is alternative medicine effective?
Position1 of 3›: Yes, alternative medicine is effective
Argument1 of 5›: Alternative medicine can complement traditional medicine

A huge number of people claim to have felt the effects of alternative medicine.

The argument

The claim here is deliberately limited: not that alternative medicine should displace conventional treatment, but that it can sit alongside it. A large and diverse group of people report the benefits of using homeopathic products, and proponents argue that this reported experience is itself enough to justify their commercialisation. The condition that matters is the arrangement rather than the remedy: when alternative medicines are used alongside mainstream medicine and the orthodox medicine prescriber is aware, there are many benefits to the patient. Awareness on the prescriber's part is what keeps the two from working against each other. The practice is not marginal. The CDC recently reported that the majority of individuals in the United States, at 54.9%, used CAM in conjunction with conventional medicine, which is to say in conjunction with it rather than instead of it, and that is precisely the complementary pattern the argument describes. The reasons people give are varied: to feel better, to reduce symptoms or treatment side-effects, to feel more in control of an illness, or to seek a cure when they are told there isn't one. Several of these are not claims about pharmacology at all but about the experience of being ill, and proponents treat that as the point, since patients feel they are taking more of an active role in their healing and partnering with their therapist in their recovery. Online health gurus, as the phrase goes, "make you feel empowered, because you're going against orthodoxy." Two further observations are offered in support. People seek CAM techniques because they believe the side effects will be lower, and increasing numbers of medical colleges have started offering courses in alternative medicine. The profession's own position is presented as the decisive one: if used alongside conventional treatments, most orthodox clinicians find most forms of complementary medicine acceptable.

Premises

[P1]A majority of Americans use complementary and alternative medicine alongside conventional treatment. [P2] Patients report benefits — feeling better, fewer side effects and a more active, empowered role in their own healing. [P3] When used with mainstream medicine and a doctor's awareness, most clinicians find it acceptable. [C] Therefore, because alternative medicine can complement traditional medicine, it is effective.

Counter-arguments

Using alternative medicine alongside orthodox medicine can be dangerous. For example, many people do not tell their mainstream practitioner they are using CAM and experience interactions with other medicines (such as St John’s wort and antidepressants).

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Using the two together can be dangerous.

Framing

- The individual has ultimate control over their body. - There is value in consumers having choice of health care.