Forensic Nursing Chronicles

What would happen if hospitals (doctors, nurses, etc) started advising their patients to take more herbal medicines?

I suppose there is a reason why we don’t see more of that. These supplements have not been approved by the FDA. If doctors advised or prescribed these herbal medications and there was an adverse effect or some time of side-effect or carcinogenic effect in the medicines than those prescribing doctors could be sued for their advising patients to take them.

It would be great if the FDA was able to do more research on these products because maybe it would open up the door for doctors to prescribe these medications and then maybe we wouldn’t have to rely quite as much on antibiotics or heavy-duty medications.

Another perspective from a forensic standpoint relating to criminal justice and legal matters is that I am surprised that we don’t have more court cases in which people are suing some of these herbal medicine companies for the claims they make.

They make such outlandish claims and I am sure that there have been many people who have become sick due to taking those medications. It seems that there should be more accountability there.

But there is really no way to govern it because the herbal medication/dietary supplement industry has become so huge. I do think though that from a forensic nursing standpoint there could be more effort put into this situation. Maybe by more health professionals leading the charge.

The Herbal and dietary supplements market is booming. I know I have taken a one or two of these substances hoping and feeling that they have helped me. Of these substances, I have taken Echinacea the most. As one book says it is supposed to help the immune system fight off the common cold/flu symptoms. I have felt this to be true.

Whether it has just been the placebo effect or if it really does help, I don’t know. The product I take is called “Green Magma”. It is a mixture of many different substances that are supposed to boost the immune system such as echinacea, powdered barley grass, and others.

Because of the fact that none of these products on this market are backed by the FDA (there are way too many of them for the FDA to keep up with anyways) we never know exactly how safe they are. I am looking forward to continued research on these products to test their actual scientific effect on the immune system.

This entry was posted on March 8, 2006 at 9:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.