What do you think of the statement "if alternative medicine worked, it would become part of regular medicine"?

It's entirely true, and it happens. Remember that modern medicine is based on the concept of scientific evidence, clinical trials, and so forth, to test treatments and prove their safety and effectiveness.

If a particular alternative health treatment or product goes through clinical trials, demonstrates its effectiveness in a proper scientific manner, then it becomes just as valid as conventional medicine and is incorporated into it. One of the best examples of this is midwifery- for a long time, midwives were basically alternative practitioners who were heavily opposed by mainstream doctors. Over time, though, they justified their practices through science, adopted rigorous educational standards and so forth, and now they are an integral part of modern medical care. Why did this happen? Because what midwives did, it worked.

Accupuncture is another example of an alternative treatment that is being incorporated, where appropriate, into mainstream therapy. There are clinical trials that demonstrates it is effective for pain relief, at least up to a point and in selected patients it is a useful adjunct to pain medication, so it is used there. It is essentially worthless for anything else and there is a bit of a turf war going on in the field about whether or not they should try and practice in areas not supported by science. Also the traditional teaching of how it works (involving energy forces and so forth), is likely garbage- scientists think it actually works by stimulating nerve cells. Either way, if it continues, it could become a legitimate part of regular medicine.

Alternative medicine that isn't supported by scientific evidence remains outside conventional medicine for that reason- either it has never been tested in clinical trials, or it has been tested and failed. Homeopathy is a good example- it fails abysmally in clinical trials and has no legitimate scientific basis (homeopathic remedies are basically just water), and there is no evidence that it works, and so as such, it remains outside of conventional medicine.

But yes, if alternative medicine worked, it would be used in regular medicine. It's also worth mentioning that even if parts of it might one day be proven to work, offering them without this evidence outside of a clinical trial is extremely unethical. You'll note that our medications need to be FDA-approved, which requires testing them in clinical trials to show they are safe and effective. You can get them as part of a trial, if you meet the selection criteria and give informed consent. What we don't do is just say the new medications work without testing them.

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