a pet peeve of mine is the natural eating / drug movement. you know, the people that think if they eat organically grown all natural foods they will be superior to those who choose a small amount of pesticide rather than eat a lot of bugs. there's many things i can say about this... there are good things and bad things. but i think in general the bad is not proclaimed loudly enough because i know i hear some pretty wild claims about thier good things.
in that vein i was happy to see that
a study of echinacea shows it has no affect on getting a cold or getting over it. what caught my eye even more is the quote at the bottom of the story from Dr. Wallace Sampson, an emeritus clinical professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
[T]hey [herbal remedies] are drugs and toxins and most plant species out there have a more likely chance of harming one than helping one.
3 comments:
interesting... Some poeple come up with some crazy crap stuff.
Today at lunch a coworker told me that some dr/teacher lady called in on a radio show and said that kids don't eat vegetables because their tongues are so sensitive they can taste the pesticides on the veggies. uh, right...
thats like saying you shouldn't eat meat becuase on the whole there are more toxic animals out there than edible ones.
I'm sure theres more speceies of poison arrow frogs than cows (well, maybe not, but you get the idea), yet we still eat meet.
the doctors statement was over the top. though I agree with it, I have to point out the obvious lack of intelegence this guy possesses
unfortunately the quote in the story was not taken from a either of the articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and so i can't give any context for it. i think this sampson has a bit of a bone to pick with false claims. he is the editor of scientific review of alternative medicine, which appears to be primarily concerned with debunking "natural" claims. further he teaches on fradulent medical claims and sits on some boards etc... so he is probably so wrapped up in making his point he tends to make it a bit off the deep end to counter the other deep end.
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