Comment Re:Heomeopathy = Placebo (Score 1) 507
For some doctors here in China at least, it is the other way around.
About 10 years ago, I came to China to do English teaching, and as I suffer from chronic fatigue (worse than it sounds), I went to a Chinese doctor to see if there was anything useful I might find.
This was also central China--not some highly developed coastal city (though it was urban)--and after my translator explained my interest in some Chinese medicine for fatigue, he derisively said to the translator, "he believes in that stuff (too)?". After I made clear that my interest was because there were no scientifically proven treatments for chronic fatigue, and I was willing to try something which might help (with traditional use perhaps pointing to an effective but as yet untested treatment), he conceded in the validity of the interest.
He didn't end up prescribing anything, but Chinese hospitals and local drug stores do have significant amounts of dried herbs along with the standard "Western" medicine. But as this anecdote might support, among medical professionals at least, the priority might not necessarily be based on traditional medicine first except in the sense of avoiding stress, eating well, etc.
Even among traditional medicine advocates, taking herbs might not be supported unless the person has a weakened constitution, etc.
But I do agree it might be beneficial to find herbs, taken as many Chinese do, over a longer period of time than the equivalent but more potent drugs which really can hammer you with negative side effects (and which many Western doctors hardly advise you about at all--e.g., I was sent to different specialists for some terrible jaw pain I had and later discovered on my own it was due to a prescribed antacid I had been taking; perhaps tellingly, a Chinese doctor here independently started me with the same medicine as I got prescribed in the U.S. but with half the dosage--and it worked pretty well).