Herbal medication vs quackery
By 1930, "Dr." John R. Brinkley of Arkansas, Kansas had transplanted over 16,000 goat testicles into men who wanted to relive their youth. At $750 per procedure, he became a wealthy man. Needless to say, we would call his practice quackery at best. The thing most people don't realize is that because of loopholes in the law, people can be legally duped in much the same way. You can take anything you want other than recognized poisons and illegal drugs, package it up and sell it as a food additive. The only restriction is that you cannot make claims of any medical benifit on the container itself. They can make as many claims as they want away from the container. As long as those claims are not made on the container itself, there is no regulation on the product in the United States.One poor fellow that I saw in the emergency room had a terrible case of Rhus Dermatitis. That is the medical term for what is commonly called poison oak or poison ivy. He had started out getting a small area of rash on his arm. So, he went down to the local health food store and bought a poison ivy treatment. After taking the 'cure' he proceeded to get profoundly worse. By the time I saw him he had a rash all over his body and was extremely miserable. I found the reason by carefully reading the bottle. The 'cure' was a naturopathic remedy that had poison ivy in it! How ridiculous is that?
The advertising that you see for some products makes it immediately obvious that the product is useless. Anyone trained in anatomy and physiology would know right away that the claims were false.
One good example is when the claims are contradictory. Rheumatoid arthritis and allergies are good examples of problems caused by overactive immune systems. Yet I have seen products claim that they not only help with allergies but they boost the immune system. You can't have it both ways folks. The other thing that makes you go hmm... is when the advertising claims that the product causes specific physiologic changes in the body. Then they go on and claim that the product does not contain a drug. But, check the definition of a drug: 'A substance used in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a disease'. Clearly, if you are claiming that your product can be used to treat or prevent disease, you are talking about a drug. If you say that your substance does not contain a drug, then you can't say it is preventing or treating a disease. Here again, you can't have it both ways.
But, you may say, what I am taking is just plant parts. When my father was in pharmacy school in the 1950's, virtually all drugs were made by collecting plants and mixing them in certain ways to prepare drugs. Now, people do the same thing, but they are able to sell them as food aditives because they make no claims about their properties read more
