Wednesday, January 14, 2009

What He Said...

I had intended to follow up with a rant on a particular fave topic of mine - the idea that "natural" equates to "safe".

However, the always thought provoking Dr Crippen has beaten me to it. And, inevitably, said it better than me.

So, read his piece here.

1 comment:

Dr Jon said...

So, some herbs are potentially potent. I don't think anyone is denying that .. (skin up Mike!).

The problem as I and many others see it, is that the pharmaceutical companies are only incentivised to sell patented medicines, which have high R&D costs but potentially massive returns if they hit upon a good one. Nobody is funding proper large scale research and trials of drugs based from herbs, because there is no protectable revenue stream from them.

To compound things further, the magic phrase "clinically proven" can often mean only "51% effective". You can see why the debate is somewhat polarised!

Has anyone got any sensible ways out of this situation?

You are right about the homeopaths though. Their snake oil is even watered down. Twats.