What's safer FDA approved drugs or non-FDA aprovved herbs and supplements?

Question

Other than Ma Huang {5% ephedra} name an herb that has killed someone.

Answer 1

herbs are supplements are drugs, just they haven't been proven for efficacy.  Dirty drugs.

Answer 2

That question is impossible to answer, since there are so many different ways to break it up.

But if you want to define the non FDA approved ones as

"things which people have regularly used for a while (ie. most herbs have been in use for ages) and are consumed for believed health applications rather than getting highs" they will by a large majority.

Most of the herbs floating around have been empirically proven to work and be mostly safe through generations of human experience (which some contend is not as efficacious as RTC's), while most modern drugs are proven through RTC's (which is why they are believed to be superior).

However, practically, the RTC approval process has a lot of flaws (ie. corruption) and often allows drugs which don't work and are toxic to go on the market, which causes them (especially in regards to possible harmful effects) to be significantly worse than tried and true herbs.

If you confront the evidence based medicine people on this, they essentially make the claim that carrots should be outlawed because scientific testing has never been done to establish they are good for you and non toxic.

I read this article a week ago, and I think it provides about the best answer possible to your question and the specific points you mentioned (I'm actually suprised at how well it fits).  Read it if you can!

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/218...

Answer 3

non approved herbs and supplements gets my vote. The FDA is biased and is in bed with Big Pharma most of the time. You can count on one hand the number of people who died from taking herbs as suggested by the packager/manufacturer but millions of people have died or made very ill from taking prescription and over the counter drugs. Herbs have been used by every country in the world for probably 5,000 years with documented good results. Drug testing is done mostly at the expense of the manufacturers so you know that if a scientist/test lab wants to keep the testing money coming in they pretty much know what results Big Pharma wants. We are all guinea pigs. Months or years after drugs are in the marketplace the real damage shows up. And if you think about some of the adverse stories about herbs you will discover that many herbs came from China and were intentionally mixed with prescription drugs to enhance the effect and this was hidden from US consumers. So there!!!!!!

Answer 4

you must be joking

http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/ce/...

did you ever thing of eating mushrooms that grow wildly in the forest?

did hear about the side effects of Bella-Donna the "simple" herb the medicine Valium is made of ?

and the reason the government has placed FDA between the public and the manufacturers is for the public's benefit and not its harm even if it looks like they avoid some stuff to move around.

http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/

you should learn the basics about FDA's aim

http://www.fda.gov/default.htm

you'll be surprised, good luck, and stay in good health

Answer 5

The 4th leading cause of death in the United States is side effects from prescription and non-prescription drugs.

http://www.the7thfire.com/PrescripDrugs....

Answer 6

the non FDA stuff on the whole

the Australian Bush Flower Essences not being a herb or a supplement is my choice as the safest and least problematic or toxic of the bunch of them.

"Australian Bush Flower Healing" by Ian White

ISBN-10: 073380

Yahoo email group discussing Australian Bush Flower Essences

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ABF...

Answer 7

I'm on epilepsy medication and I've gone into the hospital for a swollen liver, bleeding gums, heart palpatations and an immune system so low I can't even leave the house.  Plus It doesn't even completely take care of my seizures.  With out herbs I don't know where I would be.