Artemisinin has not yet been proven effective, but it is actually being
studied by serious cancer researchers.  My wonderful dog died of canine
lymphoma last year and we almost got her in an artemisin trial being done
at Georgetown Medical School--unfortunately her cancer was too advanced to
meet the protocol.  We had interesting communications, though, with
researchers at U of Washington and Georgetown who said artemisinin at least
had sufficient promise to merit the time and expense of formal clinical
studies.  I think this is part of a general effort in the established
medical community to actually check out the potential curative properties
of various traditional Chinese herb remedies (like artemisinin).  This is a
case, however, of many being called but few (or none) being chosen.  The
mere fact that an herb is being studied obviously means nothing as to its
effectiveness.  I do think that artemisinin at this point has some proven
antimalarial properties, but that's it.