Safety and Effectiveness of Herbs and Pharmaceuticals

Steven Novella of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe also maintains a blog called NeuroLogica Blog that combines his interest in science and skepticism with his background in medicine (he's a practicing neurologist on the faculty at Yale).His January 2nd entry is titled The Plant vs Pharmaceutical False Dichotomy, and it touches on an issue we debated a couple months ago about the error of stressing "natural" over safety and effectiveness.Novella defines a drug as any "any chemical or combination of chemicals that has biological activity within the body above and beyond their purely nutritional value." By this definition an herb is a drug, and it is my position that the only measures that matter regarding drugs like herbs and pharmaceuticals are demonstrated safety and effectiveness. [forum=-11] is probably the best destination.--Percy

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