Fwd: [wiseweeds] MD Hysteria Against Herbs

[Guest guest]

I thought this was hilarious.

 

Victoria

 

>Catherine Novak <cnovak

>wiseweeds

> " wiseweeds " <wiseweeds >

>[wiseweeds] MD Hysteria Against Herbs

>Mon, 07 Aug 2000 12:24:11 +0000

>

>FYI,

>

>From Alan Tillotson, who's also written the one about Super

>Blue, Green, Yellow Magnetic Volcanic Colloidal Nino Juice (found here:

>http://metalab.unc.edu/herbmed/neat-stuff/sbganoni.html ).

>

>It's free for anyone to copy and post on their websites, e-mail to

>friends.

>Cathy, Wise Weeds

>http://www.freeyellow.com/members6/wiseweeds/

>

>MD Hysteria Against Herbs Reaches Epidemic Proportions: Threatens

>Nation's

>Health

>by Alan Tillotson, Ph.D.

>

>August 2, 2000

>For Immediate Release

>

>A mass epidemic of hysteria against common plants use for health

>purposes has

>emerged over the past year. Local outbreaks are reported occurring in

>all parts

>of the United States. MD's and former regulatory officials seem hardest

>hit. The

>hysteria seems to be fueled by physicians and reporters untrained in the

>proper

>use of plant medicines responding to reports of specific isolated

>problems

>attributed to herbs, and then jumping to false, excessive and

>unwarranted

>conclusions based on limited or erroneous information. The new syndrome

>is being

>labeled hysterical phytophobia.

>

>In a typical case, a Wilmington, Delaware neurologist was shown a list

>of plant

>medicines given to an elderly patient by a professional herbalist, and

>promptly

>wrote a letter to her family physician saying that one of the herbs

>could be

>fatal. It turned out that the herbalist had given the woman ginseng root

>in

>small dosage, appropriate for her age and symptom picture. The

>neurologist, with

>no background or training in herbal medicine, misread Chinese ginseng

>root

>(Panax ginseng) for jimson weed (Datura stramonium), a toxic plant which

>

>contains the alkaloids atropine, hyoscyamine, and scopolamine, and is

>not

>commercially available.

>

>News reports reporting an article in the March 1999 edition of the

>journal

>Fertility and Sterility. stated that St. John's Wort (Hypericum

>perforatum),

>echinacea (Echinacea species) and ginkgo leaf (Ginkgo biloba) might have

>a

>negative impact on human fertility. Researchers from the Loma Linda

>University

>School of Medicine in California had reported that directly dosing human

>sperm

>with large amounts of these herbs in the test tube caused the sperm to

>lose its

>ability to penetrate hamster eggs. The lead author of the study, Richard

>R.

>Ondrizek, M.D. was upset and " flabbergasted " that his research was being

>used in

>the media to promote the idea that these herbs could cause infertility

>in

>humans.

>

>In February, 2000 Reuters reported that juice derived from the fruit of

>the noni

>tree (Morinda citrifolia), a popular health food, was a hidden source of

>

>potassium and therefore could be hazardous for patients with kidney

>disease.

>According to an article in the February issue of the American Journal of

>Kidney

>Diseases, the juice contained potassium, but did not include this

>information on

>the label. The amount of potassium in the juice was found to be similar

>to that

>of orange juice and tomato juice, common food items which are sometimes

>restricted in the diets of patients with kidney disease. According to

>the

>researchers, the case illustrates the potential dangers of herbal

>products.

>However, James Duke, Ph.D. developer of the voluminous USDA databases on

>natural

>products points out that " All plants contain potassium. Must we

>idiotically and

>neurotically label all our foods as hazards to nephrotics? . . .

>Certainly they

>should advise people that the beet, chicory, chinese cabbage, cucumber,

>dill,

>lambs quarter, lettuce, mung bean, oats, purslane, radish, spinach and

>watercress may contain more potassium on a dry weight basis than tomato

>and noni

>(if their unpublished analysis was correct). And asparagus, barley,

>beans,

>carrot, celery, coriander, swamp cabbage, wheat and dozens of other

>common foods

>are worse than orange as sources of potassium. " No one has suggested

>that lack

>of potassium labeling on these items is an example of the potential

>dangers of

>food.

>

>The New England Journal of Medicine reported last week that dietary

>supplements

>may contain a variety of animal tissues " that could spread ... bovine

>spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) " , commonly known as mad cow disease.

>Reuters admitted however that so far no BSE has not yet been identified

>in the

>US, in spite of the fact that 60% of Americans are taking dietary

>supplements.

>The average american consumes 112.3 pounds of meat per year (1990),

>which is

>equivalent to 138 grams per day. The small amount of food supplements

>which

>contain animal products are usually manufactured by reputable companies

>in

>sterile facilities (one of which has been in business for over 30

>years), and

>given at doses at approximately 1/10 of a gram per day. This 1/10 gram

>increases

>the estimated 0% risk by 1/1380 of 0%, which still equals 0% risk. In

>fact risk

>cannot be calculated until the first case is reported on US shores. The

>true

>risk may actually be less than 0%, due to the beneficial effects of many

>herbs

>on immune function. In addition the problems with mathematical

>calculations (see

>below), fear-mongering phytophobic hysterics also seem unable to

>differentiate

>between animal products and plant (herbal) products, in spite of

>give-away

>keywords on the labels such as " bovine source " or " pork thyroid. "

>

>The current outbreak of hysterical phytophobia is believed by observers

>to have

>originated from a cumulative effect caused by press releases over the

>past year

>attacking DSHEA, the law which governs dietary supplements, and which

>removed

>some power from the FDA due to past abuses. In its later stages,

>hysterical

>phytophobia victims have been known to go on camera with eyes bulging

>and bodies

>gyrating while they repeat a litany of charges against herbal

>medicines, most

>of which have been discredited in the past, some of which stem back more

>than 10

>years.

>

>The disease also cause a form of selective amnesia/dementia, whereupon

>victims

>seem completely unaware of the thousands of safety studies and

>placebo-controlled studies clearly showing a high benefit to risk ratio

>for most

>herbs and supplements. They also seem unable to mathematically calculate

>the

>vast numerical difference between the thousands of victims of modern

>pharmaceutical medicine and the handful of victims of natural medicines.

>For

>example, the worst estimates of " dangerous herbs " estimates they may

>kill 50

>Americans a year, while pharmaceuticals routinely kill 140,000 Americans

>a year

>(according to JAMA 1997), making herbs approximately 2,800 times safer

>than

>pharmaceuticals. Put another way, since one Americans dies from

>pharmaceuticals

>every three hours, at least two will expire during the average time

>spent

>writing an article attacking herbs.

>

>There is currently no known cure for hysterical phytophobia. Some

>observers

>point out that there are rare remissions which seem to occur when

>physicians

>themselves are struck by severe illness, and forced to undergo toxic

>therapy in

>the cold, dehumanzing environment characteristic of modern medicine.

>Others note that the real victims are the American people, who in the

>future may

>find their freedom to obtain needed and sometimes life-saving

>nutritional

>supplements curtailed by the unrelenting pseudo-scientific attacks made

>by rabid

>phytophobic fear-mongers.

>

>

>

>

>The information in this post should not replace advice given by your

>medical practitioner.

>

 

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