Originally Posted by
detritus
You know this is true of herbs too, right? There are a lot of herbs that aren't safe and were deemed unsafe after they had been used for a long time: ephedra, licorice root, St. John's wort, digitalis.. If anything, herbal remedies have more potential to be unsafe because there hasn't been enough research on them. The research hasn't been done because of money and corporate interests, but that doesn't change the fact that they are unstudied.
Actually there are studies all over the world just not in the US.
Ephedra was not unsafe per say it was used unsafely by the people using it....all those cases were user error yet it was pulled off the market...Vioxx has taken many more lives and yet it is on the market because over 15,000 lives were not enough to remove it...
On the other hand ALL drugs have to be toxic and kill....
43% of ALL drugs cause cancer in animals yet they are still on the market.
Here are some "fun" facts:
It is true cancer mortality rates have remained relatively unchanged from 1975 to 2003. However, in the same time period the incidence of cancer had risen dramatically affecting 1.3 million people annually. Today nearly 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will develop cancer in their lifetime. This translates to 56% more cancers in men and 22% more in women in a single generation!
Christopher Murray M.D. and Ph.D., Director of WHO's Global Program on Evidence for Health Policy said:
Basically, you die earlier and spend more time disabled if you are an American rather than a member of most other advanced countries.
It costs $300 million to bring a drug to market.
The first step of the FDA approval process is that ALL drugs must pass an LD-50. This means that the said drug must be able to kill 50% of its lab animals and then go on to kill all of them for a lethal dose test.
IF a drug cannot pass that test it is said to be a Natural Remedy and falls under the DSHEA of 1994 - Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. In the U.S., over 3 million pounds of antibiotics are used every year on humans. That amounts to 10 teaspoons of pure antibiotic for every man, woman and child per year.
Most medication are synthesized from chemicals in labs, however some include biological agents as diverse as whale sperm and human blood parts.
Every body of water tested contains measurable drug residues.
In 1995 JAMA - the Journal of the American Medical Association - noted that:
"Over one million patients are injured in U.S. hospitals each year and approximately 280,000 die annually as a result of these injuries."
Iatrogenic deaths - doctor caused - in the U.S. account for 783,936 deaths each year. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of deathand injury. The facts bear this out. In 2001, heart disease annual death rate was 699,697 . In 2001, the annual cancer death rate was 553,251
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