Medical science, via 800 pound gorilla pharmaceudical companies, kill thousands of patients annually.
An irrelevant strawman argument when raised in the context of claims for the safety and efficacy of supplemetns and herbs. Conventional medicine saves tens of millions of lives, so while all therapy is a balance of risks against benefits, and some people will be harmed by any therapy that has any actual physiological effects, science-based medicine has improved the length and quality of human life in a way dramatically greater than any othe approach ever tried. And even if one could somehow demonstrate that it did more harm than good, that has nothing to do with the safety and effectiveness of alternatives.
Individuals must take responsibility for their own health, and research all options/ remedies thoroughly.
People should certainly be informed and responsible for their own health. But there is a common misconception that an hour on the internet makes one’s knowledge the equal of a scientist or doctor who has devoted years of sudy and practice to understanding medicine. Most of the theories concocted in opposition to the principles of mainstream medicine and in support of alterative approaches are manifestly false, and the internet is a wellspring of questionable information and outright nonsense. So being informed and being competant to reject the basic tenets of scientific medicine are two different things.
These personally prepared remedies are far more efficacious than prescription drugs…This works for me, with far fewer side effects than pharmacological products.
This is an opinion, and without controlled scientific evaluation to support it, it amounts to no more than a claim based on faith. Plenty of people also claimed to have been healed by prayer. That doesn’t mean they have been. Side effects to herbs and supplements are well-documented (e.g. HERE), which is actually a reason to think they might potentially be real medicines. Anything that has an effect on a system as complicated as the physiology of a living organism will have unintended as well as desired effects. Homeopathy is free of side-effects because it is free of effects. Herbs often have actual effects, and as a result can be harmful. But there is zero evidence of any quality beyond testimonial and faith to show that herbal remedies are safer or more effective than conventional drugs.
A lesson on why our personal trial and error and experiences, as well as folk tradition, are unreliable guides to the safety and efficacy of medical therapies is beyond the scope of a forum post like this. There are plenty of resources on the subject I can point you towards But the bottom line is that scientific evaluation is far more effective in deciding which treatments work and which don’t than anything else, and it has led to the successes of modern healthcare which are so extensive as to be nearly invisible and often taken for granted a mere few generations after they were first recieved as miracles (vaccination, antibiotics, aseptic technique, anesthesia, rapid and effective trauma care, and so many others). Whatever the failings of our health care delivery system, and they are many, there is no justification beyond ignorance for suggesting that homespun alternatives are the better choice.
