The vitamins and herbs crowd is has long since ceased to be just a bunch of old hippies. I dearly wish there could be a set of enforceable quality standards in the supplement world but handing it over to the "medical-industrial complex" is definitely not the answer.
I detest New Agers and I think a great deal of "alternative" therapy is quack central but the libertarian in me will not allow Big Brother any more authority over how I take care of myself.
The big issue here is not "alternative" vs conventional medicine, but the ability of patients to arrive at their own conclusions about how to treat theor own bodies. We have signed over control of medicine to a self-appointed crew of bureaucrats and corporate executives - precisely the last people who we should trust to make decisions in other than their own favor.