I'm a bit less sanguine about that view, considering I've used CTM (Chinese Traditional Medicine) to good effect in the past.
Seeming as there is tons of people that swear by homeotherapy as well, such a statement doesn't really mean anything. Especially since traditional Chinese medicine is, from what I know at least, heavily focused on preventing ails rather than during them, which makes it all the more easier to fraud people with it.
Furthermore, nobody is ever saying that there isn't some parts in CTM that works. "Western" medicine, which actually should be titled Scientific Medicine, is loosely based on an equally ancient and equally full of bullshit medicinal tradition, as you probably know, but then we decided to find out what parts of it actually worked and what didnt. All in all, people are saying two simple things:
1, Nobody who practices CTM has any real knowledge of what they're doing. All they have is superstition and unscientific natural philosophy which they arbitrarily decided was correct. And when CTM actually does work, nobody has any idea of the real reason why, or what all the other chemicals you ingested with the working one will do to you.
2, Just like with Western Traditional Medicine, when something out of CTM is proven to work and we know how and why it works, it becomes Scientific Medicine.
Acupuncture used to be (still is in some circles) considered quackery too.
Acupuncture used to be called bullshit because it was said to cure things, cancers, brain diseases, genetic stuff, all of those ails we still haven't got very good cures for (what a coincidence, huh?). Now, it is used as a painkiller and/or relaxation therapy. Anyone claiming it does anything more is still a quack.
Prerog: MASSIVE NINJA INVASION! But then again, I started writing this a few words at a time several hours ago. Gonna go read the rest now.