Quote:
Originally Posted by Willravel
Yes, but it's uncommon for something truly dangerous to slip by the FDA. Some testing is better than no testing whatsoever.
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Actually, when "some testing" is based on faulty premises it can actually be worse than no testing because it can provide an illusion of effectiveness.
I don't have any info about studies relating natural remedies and morbidity. If you know of any, I'd be interested to see them; I don't doubt that there are natural remedies which can do more harm than good. However, there are no shortage of examples of popular, medical science endorsed treatments which turn out to have fairly serious and unexpected side effects, though I readily admit that these cases constitute a minority.
I'm not saying all pharmaceuticals are harmful and/or useless, just that it doesn't necessarily make sense to hold them up as some sort of example of the salutary effects of the scientific method, when frequently the scientific method plays only a small role in bringing the drugs to market. The type of trials required by the FDA aren't necessarily able to discover the effects of long term use and they aren't necessarily required to compared a drug's effectiveness with the relevant alternatives treatments.