The reality is that placebo is a very powerful effect and that people can derive very real benefits from it. While I largely agree with skeptic groups like Science-based Medicine, I think it is a mistake to dismiss treatments that are shown to have no effect beyond placebo as quackery, when patients are shown to derive a benefit, sometimes powerful, regardless. They would argue that on the whole, accepting that "quackery" is harmful to society, outweighing the placebo benefit, but that is largely a doctrine within these groups with, ironically, very little scientific basis.
They tend to also to have blinders when it comes to western medicine's shortcomings. Surgical treatments, for example, have had almost no clinical trials to establish their effectiveness (for pretty clear reasons). The one notable instance where they did a study looking at patients treating osteoarthritis in the knee with arthroscopic surgery, comparing them to a placebo group that underwent the same surgery, but without the actual treatment being completed, found no difference between the groups. Yet, this surgery continues to be performed by the thousands.
They tend to also to have blinders when it comes to western medicine's shortcomings. Surgical treatments, for example, have had almost no clinical trials to establish their effectiveness (for pretty clear reasons). The one notable instance where they did a study looking at patients treating osteoarthritis in the knee with arthroscopic surgery, comparing them to a placebo group that underwent the same surgery, but without the actual treatment being completed, found no difference between the groups. Yet, this surgery continues to be performed by the thousands.