Yeah-- it's not really about
alt med. More like the scientific process. I know a lot of people on the traditional, research side of things that have
zero beef with herbals as effective pharmacotherapuetics. Only with snake oil and woo.
The fact, is, though, that NCCAM funds this kind of research because traditionally, NIH won't... but equally unfortunately, NCCAM seems to be unable (or unwilling?) to sort the wheat from the chaff there, which winds up meaning that preliminary data... has almost no bearing on funding. They also fund a lot of pure snake oil (which, to be clear, wouldn't happen if they relied heavily on higher quality preliminary data) which contributes to the problem.
There's also a barrier (VERY difficult to overcome) of such therapeutic approaches absolutely
mandating (either traditional botanicals
or allopathic modern pharmaceuticals, I mean) sham treatment and/or placebo comparisons. Apples to apples, yk?
Few researchers do those, particularly not on the CAM side of things. I can't quite decide if this is deliberate omission because they suspect that the efficacy is mostly placebo, or if they sincerely don't understand why comparison with other therapeutic interventions-- or with no treatment at all-- isn't a true comparison. Ace researchers
do use good experimental design, however.
Just don't be too surprised that there are hard-core scientists interested in TCM and other traditional herbal/apothecary practice. We all know that
some of that stuff is real. And some of the real stuff probably isn't placebo-- which then makes the question more interesting. Who wouldn't be interested in that??
Some of those people seem to have a personal background which supports (explains?) the source of that interest, at least superficially. Here's what I know from working in biological sciences, though--
it's ALWAYS personal. Every single passionate person at a national meeting has an interesting (and sometimes heartbreaking) personal story of why they do what they do.
So I wouldn't put too much on family background/ethnicity. At least not in an obvious way; the truth is probably a lot more complicated.