The naturalistic fallacy \u2013 the notion that all things natural are good (and therefore the unnatural must be bad) is pervasive in our culture, and quite dangerous when applied to medicine. In the context of food and medicine an unhealthy reverence for nature takes the form of assuming that something which is natural must be magically safe and effective. Of course, nature does not care about us and it is more often toxic and deadly than helpful.<\/p>\n
In the US the word \u201cnatural\u201d is used as a marketing ploy to convey a sense that a product is good and wholesome. This is combined with a terribly unscientific scheme for categorizing foods vs drugs vs supplements and regulating health claims about them. The end result is that the public is being sold many drugs as if they were vitamins, and worse the drugs are largely unknown, unstudied, not purified, may contain contaminants, and have highly variable doses of whatever happens to be in them. Even worse, just about any health claim can be made for these nostrums as long as the company is slightly careful about their wording (really, all they have to do is avoid making specific disease claims \u2013 a trivial obstacle for any marketing executive worth his salt).<\/p>\n