Herbal med use up despite little proof of safety

LOL  What a crock.

Most of the herbs have been used for centuries -- long before the FDA was concocted.  Furthermore, allopathic medicine is the third largest cause of death in this country, just after heart attacks and cancer.  Prescription medicines cause at least half a million deaths per year, while herb cause at most a few hundred deaths per year, despite the fact people are self-prescribing and using them without the benefit of professional guidance.

And that doesn't count the injuries -- sometimes permanent -- that don't result in actual death, just the loss of one of your kidneys perhaps.

Please.  It's not only money that cause Americans to use herbs, which are often more effective than the lethal poison that pass for prescription medicine in this country.

The same headline would be true and work for FDA approved drug use.  To bad we don't  hear a peep if there is anything questionable safety wise about conventional medicine only until something really bad happens.  And then it's never the drugs even if the perpetrator took them previously, is on them presently or was just trying to get off them.  Why encourage people to get trapped on a drug they can't get off because bad things will happen, unless they figure they'll take the money and as long as they aren't forced to take, nothing bad will happen to them.  Only thing is when you let bad things happen to other people, it always seems to come back one way or another.

FDA approved med use up despite little proof of safety.

I can hardly give my children prescription meds because of the known toxins and allergens in most of them.  (I understand coloring a pill shocking blue to keep it from being mixed up with others, but perhaps we could use a blue that is not a neurotoxin.)  Currently we use many over the counter herbal/natural remedies with excellent results.  However, I'm surprised that the article states that many are using these as a cost saving method.  My personal experience has been that if you buy from a tested, trusted brand, you will usually pay quite a bit.  I know it depends on the supplement, but I haven't found many of them to be any cheaper than my $35 co-pay for a prescription.

Yeah! People are wising up!

The Chinese people have been practicing with herbal medicine for years, and I don't see them dying off from medications, do you?

I admire and appreciate a good radiologist or a good surgeon, but these chemically-formulated new drugs on the market are for the birds!!

I'm all about the natural and organic way of living. Wish more people were.

I was diagnosed with leukemia 4 years ago;  Being a former teacher I did my homework.  No medical intervention to date (chemo, rad,etc.)  But I take a gazillion supplements.....and my lymphocyte percentage is now in the normal range.

I get around the high cost of drugs by growing a lot of my own herbs.  I make my own teas, tinctures, decoctions, solutions, etc and while I do go to a physician when I need to (I didn't take out my own appendix last year), I find that the herbs that I take, many of which I grow myself, keep me in pretty good shape.  I would not recommend to anyone taking stuff without knowing what it does and doesn't do, and if you don't have the inclination to learn all of that, then I recommend a good herbalist for consultation.  Most of these herbs have been around for centuries and have been effective.  Pharmaceutical companies can't patent herbs and therefore can't make an obscene amount of money on them, that is why they like to claim that they have no effect or are deadly or whatever.  I take conventional medication when I need to, but if there is an herbal alternative, I am going there.  Make sure, though, that if you are taking herbs, they are grown organically without pesticides.  Just sayin'

I am so glad to see there really are people out there with real brains.  The FDA, AMA and our own government are trying very hard to take away our right to self medication.  We must remember they do NOT represent the interest of patients.  Their constituency are doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, etc.  They are NOT looking out for our best interest.  They are trying to protect the profit line of these institutions.  All the "old wives tales" doctors tell us don't work because they have not been proven by "man" are turned into drugs to be sold for profit.  And doctors will never admit that the original form of the medication was an "apple"

I will take my chances with the herbs and the homeopathic medicines.  Does anyone actually think the big DRUG companies give a rat's ass about our well being.  It is all $$$$$$$ and nothing more and the FDA is in their back pocket so they will approve ANYTHING.  I just spent 4 days taking Nexium for GERD.  Today I QUIT.  This medication made me feel worse than the GERD.  The side effects included severe leg cramping, headache, cotton mouth--just to name a few.  The internet has countless natural remedies plus homeopathic ones.  I am not going to be a guinea pig for big DRUGS so that 15 years from now they can decide that Nexium is a carcinogenic or causes you to have two heads.  None of the drugs are being tested to the point they need to be and the doctors continue to crank them out.  No wonder.  Have you ever seen the average drug rep--good looking young woman--oh and she also brings lunch for the doctor and his entire staff at least once a week.  And you can't convince me that the doctors aren't getting a kickback from the DRUG companies for every prescription they write.  The entire medical system in this country is nothing more than a PATHETIC MONEY PIT.  So thanks, I will stay with herbs and homeopathic and I urge everyone else to do so.

Again, Welcome to the United Corporations and Churches of America [UCCA] the USA was bought out about 50 years ago.

I use ionic/colloidal/nano silver to kill some 650 know viruses and bacteria [read no flu].

Since the FDA failed at getting that stopped the Corporate Pharmacuticals have now gone the the EPA claiming that if it kills bad bacteria the "surely" when it gets through the city sewer treatment and enter the bays then it will kill off "good algea" and harm the environment.  On Jan 20 public comments end and the EPA will regulate all forms of ionic/colloidal/nano silver as "rat poison" stopping its sale at natural stores and also the machines to make it [3 9volt batteries, 2 alligator clip jumper wires, 2 pieces 99.999 silver wire...good luck with that].

From the article:

"His agency also conducts its own research on alternative medicine and offers information about some of the most popular products at its Web site. [he is shill against this]
as from this link on Milk Thistle:

"Clinical efficacy of milk thistle is not clearly established. Interpretation of the evidence is hampered by poor study methods and/or poor quality of reporting in publications. Problems in study design include heterogeneity in etiology and extent of liver disease, small sample sizes, and variation in formulation, dosing, and duration of milk thistle therapy. Possible benefit has been shown most frequently, but not consistently, for improvement in aminotransferases and liver function tests are overwhelmingly the most common outcome measure studied. Survival and other clinical outcome measures have been studied least often, with both positive and negative findings. Available evidence is not sufficient to suggest whether milk thistle may be more effective for some liver diseases than others or if effectiveness might be related to duration of therapy or chronicity and severity of liver disease. Regarding adverse effects, little evidence is available regarding causality, but available evidence does suggest that milk thistle is associated with few, and generally minor, adverse effects."

WTF, all you need is this simple question:
For your [condition of] you took [herb].
Did it provide you relief: [circle one] YES MAYBE NO

The key being "provide relief".
When you are laying on the street after a car wreck the EMS does to say "I'm going to give you a shot of morphine to easy your pain" but...."I'm going to give you a shot to see if it provides you some relief". See, it is a legal thing.

Always be prepared to see another form "of relief" [doctor] if what you are doing [herbal] fails to provide that relief.

Lastly, please stop the EPA and their "rigged" public comment at:
http://www.colloidalsilversecrets.blogspot.com/

This is actually quite encouraging. My hope would be that with the rise in health costs will come a kind of medical reform; no longer simply treating the symptoms of already present pathologies. People need to take a more active role in preventing disease, instead of waiting until disease occurs and then attempting to reverse the process. That seems to be the problem with the health of many people in this country; they don't think that they *can* prevent disease. There are so many forms of preventive care out there that are only being utilized by a few people because they seem expensive at first. The thing is that a smaller, ongoing expense is so much better than a huge, catastrophic expense when a person does get very sick, or even the larger expenses of ongoing use of pharmaceuticals and frequent doctor visits. I'm not against going to the doctor when a person really needs one (ok, actually, I'm not a fan of going to the doctor, and avoid it at all costs...sometimes for the worst), but preventing the pathologies that bring you to the doctor and put you on drugs in the first place is so much more efficient -- and cost effective. Maybe people will finally start taking their ongoing health into their own hands...I sincerely hope so. After all, quality of life is more important than overall longevity.

In its madlong dash for profit the American medical establishment has left science far, far behind.  But cost, substantial as it is, would perhaps be worth it if were not for that fact that the medicines and therapies the American medical establishment advocates frequently does NOTHING in terms of even ameliorating the problem without some far more insidious side effect.  Additionally, it becomes frequently obvious that the American medical establishment advocates therapies that are well known to cause hideous problems for NO OBVIOUS BENEFIT WHATSOEVER.  Prostate biopsies are a current rage in the male baby boomer group where a significant group of past patients have ended up with incontinence AND impotence.  The claim is that the biopsy will allow detection of "early cancer".  Nothing is further from the truth.  A biopsy is a blind crap shoot at best.  Any take, and in fact, the group of takes, could easily and completely miss the actual spot of "early cancer", giving high possibility for a "false negative".  And it is known that every single take violates an organ that the body tried very, very hard to separate from the rest of the body due to testosterone's strong effect on the rest of the body (the prostate is notoriously difficult to treat with any kind of drug because it is so difficult to GET the drug INTO the prostate).  But the American medical establishment ignores these facts and pushes for biopsy of the prostate at the earliest opportunity, regularly ignoring even a simple "free PSA" test that can determine the likelyhood of cancer in the "less than one in  a hundred thousand" possibility.  Respecting "science" would perhaps reduce profits, but would certainly save many men from incontinence and impotence.  But why bother?  It's only health and quality of life that's effected.  No big deal.  Herbs and supplements, however, can cut prostate cancer possibility to near zero.  But will the American medical establishment conduct real studies?  No way.  It is their preference that patients have to run a gamut of trials on their own, because a misstep may result in the need for establishment purview and thereupon the "turnkey" profit machine can be immediately implemented.  On a larger scale, individual testing for vitamin, mineral and enzyme activity can be the difference between real health and barely surviving, but not being sick enough to require emergency medical activity.  The American medical establishment makes a fortune from 'barely surviving" patients.  Rather than implement science to make sure nutritional balances and allergies are properly accounted for, medicine today attaches huge price tags to any test to determine nutritional sufficiency and potential allergies.  They would simply prefer to have a diabetic patient than a well patient.  A diabetic patient is irrevocably tied to the medical establishment and must dedicate a good amount of resources to keeping that contact ongoing.  A healthy patient with a PROPENSITY toward diabetes is simply not a good enough "patient" (insert, "customer" or "consumer").  When science rises again as a significant portion of medical care, near miracles will again rise.  But then, obviously, if it happens soon, the government will have to figure out how to pay out Social Security to a large group of very healthy baby boomers old enough to collect Social Security, so don't expect the existent government to aid science in health soon, certainly not this week.

Maybe, just maybe, Chinese herbal medicines work within the context of China's culture. But I've never seen them work for me or anyone else I know. Using them is an act of faith or coincidence. Granted many official medicines don't work, or don't work for everybody, but I'd rather read the conclusions of double-blind studies and mostly, let my doctor figure this out. Science can be manipulated or wrong, but it's still what I use.

Nothing is 100%, however, I would rather go with natures meds than the expensive poison the pharm companies deal to the doctors. One must do research in order for herbal meds to work correctly. Does FDA stand for, Failed Dangerous Agency? 

I run a very effective addictiont treatment program that uses integrative medicine (combo of traditional and alternative medicine) and we are getting extraordinary results.  The reason so many NIH studies show no benefits in the use of supplements and more natural treatments is because the studies use insufficient dosages and don't include the day to day changes that many alternative medicine users incorporate in their treatments (diet and exercise.)  The fact is, the pharmaceutical companies spend more money on lobbying each year than BIG OIL and BIG TOBACCO put together.  And Big PHARMA wants no part of people treating depression with supplements of L-tryptophan and a B-complex when they can take Prosac. 

I treat people with addictions and the many physical problems that accompany this very physical problem each day (elevated liver enzymes, gastrointestinal malabsorption, fungal infections, etc.)  and I see these issues significantly improve using pharmaceutical grade supplements and no medications.  They feel great when they are finished with the program.  Milk Thistle does work when the problem is properly diagnosed and the treatment regimen is prescribed by an experienced integrative physician.  I have seen it and I have patient data (liver enzymes significantly improved) that demonstrate this.

I am an alternative care nutritionist (and an RD) and I can tell you that herbals are safer than Rx's which are the second largest cause of mortality in the country - even when used correctly. So this family is better off. The reason echinacea is sometimes helpful and sometimes not is the quality of the prep. So take care to visit quality stores or nutritionists and ask if the products are GMP or 3rd party tested.