I would expect a wealth of medical and pharmaceutical industry backlash against the influx of eastern and alternative and complementary health care techniques.

There are remedies and remedies. And perhaps there are plenty of trials with generic drugs that if put under a finer microspcope would yield not much different outcomes to the placebo effect too.

I believe the strength of the non-western non-pill-pushing methods is in means of prevention, not in bandaid fixes.

Rock on vedic medicine and Bach remedies and touchy-feely niceness, out with the labcoats and drug money machines.

I'd support more clinical trials for one main reason: the end result, if efficacy was proven, might be that the product would be regulated and thus be of a consistent, guaranteed quality, purity and dosage.

So far, this isn't happening. There's no guarantee (and indeed, no safeguards in place to ensure such) that the St John's Wort you bought two months ago was of the same quality/purity as the bottle you bought today.

With regards to the drug company/herbals conspiracy, you might be interested in the German E Monologues.

In Germany, not only are pharmaceuticals, as we know them, paid for by the National Health Insurance, but some natural products are paid for as well. In order for natural products to be paid for by the German National Health Insurance, it has to be voted upon and approved by the German E Commission.

If a natural product appears on the E List, it is fairly certain that the natural product will be effective for the use for which it is advertised. Also, the natural product's safety in the listed dose has been established. To summarise, herbals are not only tested and approved, they're sold/provided as legitimate medical aids.

With regards to herbals in general....well, my experience has been that some work by a quantifiable physiological action (ginger increases blood flow, etc), some work by placebo (echinacea by all accounts), some probably do both, and some just don't work at all (too many to list).




[edit on 27-8-2005 by Tinkleflower]

Part of the problem is a lack of hard evidence. We have become a society that wants figures to quantify results.

That is why the science of pain controll is having problems. Pain is as much psychological (ie. perception, tolerance) as it is a bio/chemical/physical manifestation.

The bottom line is that companies that make the products cannot be trusted 100% to conduct objective research on the effectiviness of thier products. Nor can the nay sayers be trusted 100% either.

So if it works and there are no long term effects to worry about, do what you body tells you it likes.