If a treatment does work, it becomes orthodox medicine

The argument

Since many alternative remedies have recently found their way into the medical mainstream, there cannot be both conventional and alternative medicine. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. There is no alternative medicine - there is only scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine supported by solid data or unproven medicine, for which scientific evidence is lacking. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. The list of practices that are considered as CAM changes continually as CAM practices and therapies that are proven safe and effective become accepted as the “mainstream” healthcare practices. Many things perhaps formerly considered as alternative therapies including vitamin supplements, certain diets, and therapies that aim at relaxation or gentle exercise such as meditation or yoga are now routinely recommended by mainstream medicine, especially for long-term health conditions. At the beginning of the 21st century, 11% of the 252 drugs considered “basic and essential” by the World Health Organization were “exclusively of flowering plant origin.” Commonly used drugs that were originally used as plant remedies in some form or other include: • Cinchona bark: in 1912 a person discovered it stopped his arrythmia and it is now manufactured as Quinidine, an antiarrhythmic and antiparasitic. • The floral remedy foxglove which slowed and strengthened the heartbeat is now manufactured as digoxin. • Native Americans used Yew Tree needles for anti-inflammatories and this is now manufactured as a cytotoxic drug. • Willow bark is manufactured as aspirin. • Red yeast rice was the original statin. • Poppy seeds were used for sleeplessness, anxiety and pain and are now manufactured as opium.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The argument establishes a claim about labels and draws a conclusion about treatments. 'Anything that works becomes orthodox medicine' is true by construction, which makes the conclusion unfalsifiable: any alternative therapy demonstrated to be effective is reclassified rather than counted, so no possible evidence could show that alternative medicine is effective. A definition that cannot be tested is not a finding. The assimilation is also less automatic than described. Whether a candidate treatment reaches the evidence threshold depends on trial funding, patentability, regulatory pathways and professional acceptance, and unpatentable interventions — dietary, behavioural, or plant-derived in unprocessed form — attract far less commercial research investment than novel molecules do, because no one can recoup the cost of the trial. Some proportion of the untested category is therefore untested for reasons that have to do with the economics of research rather than the plausibility of the treatment, which weakens the inference from 'not adopted' to 'does not work'. The examples work against the conclusion on the question as posed. Willow bark, foxglove, cinchona, yew and red yeast rice were traditional remedies that were effective before any laboratory confirmed why — the people using them were not mistaken, and orthodoxy caught up. That is a list of alternative practices that worked, offered in support of the claim that alternative medicine does not. And the argument concedes the ground it means to hold. It acknowledges that meditation, yoga, relaxation practices and dietary approaches are now routinely recommended, particularly for long-term conditions. That is the sibling position's claim — that some practices outside conventional medicine are effective — restated as a point about classification.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The claim is true by construction and therefore unfalsifiable: any alternative therapy shown to work is reclassified rather than counted, so no possible evidence could establish the negation. That is a stipulation about labels rather than a finding about treatments. [Rejecting P2] Assimilation is not automatic — adoption depends on trial funding, patentability, regulatory pathways and professional acceptance, and unpatentable interventions attract far less research investment, so absence of evidence partly reflects the economics of research. The examples also cut the other way for the question asked: traditional remedies later validated and industrialised were effective before orthodoxy adopted them.

Further reading

Angell, M. & Kassirer, J. (1998) Alternative Medicine — The Risks of Untested and Unregulated Remedies. New England Journal of Medicine, 339, 839-841, DOI: 10.1056/NEJM199809173391210