If It Quacks Like a Quack, Is It Necessarily Quackery?

I have a fickle relationship to alternative health. I love acupuncture. I avoid "health supplements" like the plague, due to the many reports I've read that warn of contaminated or falsified ingredients. I can't tolerate chiropractic treatments on myself (the neck cracking puts me through the roof), but have had it done, with success, to pets. 

Over several decades of adulthood I've also tried Chinese herbs (taste terrible, not sure if they worked), yoga (wonderfully restorative), massage (really good for my burning "writer's neck"), and a handful of other "alternative" treatments, some too weird to be named on line. Some have worked, some have not, and I remain open to trying anything new that I'm confident won't hurt me.

So I was little shocked when I stumbled on the vitriolic tirade posted about alternative health practices in a 2004 Quackfiles blog. Sure, some alternative health stuff seems bogus, but is it all fraudulent? And plenty of doctors are now adding more holistic services to their practices...or is that just a California thing? Let us know if your patients are asking for alternative care, if you're providing it, or if you think the whole field is full of, well, quacks and frauds and practitioners most fowl.