Herbal Medication Pros

"The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine." - William Osler, M.D. Canadian physician and one of the four founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. A debate about whether natural or herbal medication is safer has never been settled. While many believe natural medicine to be safer than prescribed medicine, most people tend to avoid the middle of the road that neither is safer than the other.

First of all, herbal medicines do not go through testing; yet, many believe that herbal medication is safer than prescription medication. Usually, the word “natural” on a medication bottle encourages people to buy it due to the assumption that the medication is safer to take compared to prescribed

This includes “tablets, vials, ophthalmic and otic solutions and patches” (FDA). Mislabeling drugs would most likely result in patients receiving drugs that may cause harmful side effects including an “overdose, dangerous drug interactions, and unnecessary exposure to toxicity” (FDA). Overall, many will not get the drug they need to take to aid their illness (FDA). It is completely true that prescription drugs are mislabled, making it easy to point out that herbal medication is better than prescribed medication. However, most of the prescribed medications do have correct labels which is a lot better than medications that do not provide warnings about their contents and side effects. The contents of herbal medications are not known, may not have been tested, or may be contaminated; furthermore, the public does not know how much of the medicine should be taken (Hall). Therefore, the argument that the mislabeling of prescription drugs makes herbal medicine safer to use is false because we have no proof of how safe the contents of herbal medications

Often, prescribed drugs are given to patients to treat another side effects caused by another prescribed drugs. The FDA even admits that when taking medication, it is likely that a patient may experience an unexpected side effect ranging from nausea to liver damage. A study currently done by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality showed that side effects from drugs sent 4.5 million Americans to the hospital per year (Barry). The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine calculated that roughly 2 million detrimental side effects from drugs arise per year, making it the fourth prime factor of hospital deaths (Barry). From this, it is easy to assume that prescribed drugs are filled with harmful contents that are unsafe for a humans body. Still, FDA gives it consent for the promotion of these drugs because the benefits outweigh its risks (FDA), otherwise, we would never have drugs to take for our illnesses. Herbal medication also has side effects. An example is ginseng commonly used to improve the immune system and increase mental production and health in general (UMMC). However, side effects have ranged from diarrhea, drowsiness, and headaches to fever, seizures and delirium (Johns-Cupp). Kava, used for it’s anti-anxiety effects, may cause Parkinson’s disease and rash (Johns-Cupp). Therefore, prescribed medication is not better than herbal because herbal medication have extremely severe side