Toad skin and turtle shells aren't the cures most Americans turn to when they learn they've developed cancer.
But in China, the market for traditional remedies like these grew 35 percent last year, twice as fast as the overall anti-cancer market. Though the effectiveness of these treatments is unproved, Western doctors, elite medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies are starting to put them to the scientific test.
At first glance, the gap between dried centipede (a traditional Chinese anti-cancer drug) and conventional medicine seems a wide one. But Westerners have adopted Chinese medical practice before. In 1971, New York Times editor and columnist James Reston wrote about his experience with acupuncture after an emergency appendectomy at Beijing's Anti-Imperialist Hospital. It was the first time that many Americans had ever heard of the procedure and is widely acknowledged to have done much to legitimize it in the eyes of patients, medical professionals and even insurance companies.