Herbal medicines have a centuries long history. Many of them are actual medicines, with both good and bad effects. Due to a quirk in the law, just about anyone can make any sort of claim about their supplement until they get shut down for fraud. Remember "Grapefruit diet pills" and "fat burners"? Sorry, but going to a supplement store and getting medications from anyone behind the counter just doesn't appeal to me.

When my wife does a presurgical interview with her patients, she asks them to list all supplements they take. Some of them have proven bad reactions with regular medicines and others, such as geinko, can cause excessive bleeding during surgery. Just because something is "all natural", that doesn't mean it is free of side effects.

For the record, my wife started taking a Tahitian supplement called Noni juice last year. Between the stress of her job, GIRD, and recovering from an ulcer, she was barely able to eat and was losing weight she couldn't afford. A friend recommended Noni and she tried it. Within a few weeks, she was able to eat just about anything without pain or discomfort. She swears by the stuff. I drink it, too, but I honestly can't say it has done anything for me.

Sorry to hear about your sister. It's tough when you see someone you love in trouble.

As for I agree that we should look before we leap - as opposed to the conservative belief that looking first is too expensive.

Actually, that's why many conservatives have a difficult time accepting things like global warming being caused by human activity - we want to see evidence before we leap into something so potentially hazardous to the economy. We're told that computer models predict all sorts of dire events and that we should accept that blindly. Sorry, I have no blind faith in computer simulations or models. I program computers for a living.