Death by Pharmaceuticals?(health risks of herbal dietary supplements)(Brief Article)

Dr. Duke gets the real dirt on drugs and herbs

The front page of the health section of the March 19th, 2000 Washington Post, read: "Mounting evidence suggests that increasing numbers of Americans are falling seriously ill or even dying after taking dietary supplements [...] The victims include men and women of all ages as well as children whose parents are feeding them snacks, drinks and nostrums made with herbal supplements that are neither regulated by the federal government nor tested for their effects on the young."

With such ominous articles appearing now regularly in the media, and with more and more people taking herbs, it makes sense to ask, "How does the harm done by herbs compare with harm done by other things?" Last year, several people called to ask me what I thought about another article in the Washington Post, "Health Concerns Grow Over Herbal Aids."

My immediate reaction: mostly nonsense and some truth. The nonsense is fertilizing fears among the lay public and driving them back into the waiting arms of the greedy "pharmaceuticalists." Two of my good friends were so alarmed by the negative press on herbs that they stopped herbs completely.

The growing health concerns from mass-media articles are being fertilized by trigger-happy journalists, pharmaceutical manufacturers and promoters, and physicians who know so little about herbs, many of them unfamiliar with the statistic from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that prescription drugs are killing 140,000 Americans a year. Herbs (usually through abuse or exceeding recommended dosage) are killing fewer than 100.

WHERE'S THE TRUTH

The elements of truth the Post article adduced apply mostly not to herbs, but synthetic supplements that never saw an herb. The Post article mentions ephedra, a Chinese herb, which can be used wisely and properly (in fact, various species have been used medicinally for thousands of years).