That is a false dichotomy and you know it. What you want, and everyone wants, is fair, unbiased testing of any medicine, regardless of origin. Peer reviewed sc

That is a false dichotomy and you know it. What you want, and everyone wants, is fair, unbiased testing of any medicine, regardless of origin. Peer reviewed science and FDA approval tests are not perfect, but in the vast majority of cases they are better than "centuries of empirical evidence." The placebo effect is very real; if people are paying money, betting their lives, and putting potentially dangerous compounds into their bodies (whatever the origin), then we'd like better than that. Also, I would add that alternative medicines tend to fail by not working at all, whereas (what we'll call) lab medicines tend to fail by having unforeseen, unexpected, longer-term side effects.