Vince, you hit on precisely my point. Placebo controlled clinical trials are
the gold standard for approving medicinal substances. No-one should accept
any less from "natural" treatments. Anything less has a much higher chance
to expose patients or consumers to unacceptable risks.



"Vince Hart" wrote

Perhaps that should be true, but I do not think it is. There are many
vitamins, herbs and dietary supplements that are purchased for supposed
health benefits that have not been established in clinical trials.

I agree that this has become standard practice before the DSHEA legislation
I alluded to earlier. That doesn't make it right. False, misleading, or
fradulent medical claims exploit people at their weakest. If you want a
portable music player and purchase an IRiver instead of an IPod, the worst
that happens is you give the damned thing to your neice. If you suffer from
a medical ailment and seek help in snake oil you may die as a result. At the
very least you have wasted your money, hope, and opportunity.

Probably. However, if there were a certain city in Russia that
produced a disproportionate number of grandmasters and it so happened
that this city consumed an inordinate quantity of Fungo's Potato Chips,
I think this could probably be used to sell the product. I think many
products are sold that way without clinical trials, e.g., some island
that consumes a diet high in mollusk oil has a low rate of heart
disease so mollusk oil is promoted as potentially helping the heart.