[Elrac]

Pretty much every "alternative" medical procedure or product for the gullible has one serious side effect: the potential for abandoning medicine that actually and empirically has an effect superior to placebos.

Prominent example, to make it a bit more real: Steve Jobs had a cancer with an excellent prognosis on real medicine but chose to handle it with... fruit juice, I think. Steve Jobs is now dead.

Oncologists write bitter and angry testimonials about patients they weren't able to save because those patients turned away from effective medicine. It's even more infuriating when ignorant parents make these decisions for their children.

[semi-extrinsic]

Yes, this is exactly why I believe that strong regulation is necessary, with regards to what people selling the "medicine" are allowed to say.

Your Steve Jobs example highlights that the problem wouldn't be fixed by removing alternative medicine. People can always claim that perfectly ordinary objects have alternative medicine properties.

I believe if there was a well-regulated alternative medicine industry where people would trust practicioners like they do today, but where those practicioners were prohibited from saying they could cure cancer etc, we would end up in a much better situation.