Talk:Herbal medicine/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Notes on Archive 1 (June 2007–July2008)

Some of the issues raised in the first archive (permalink) may be less applicable today:

1. The lead and article may be overly long, and jumbled.
2. JamesStewart7 removed some studies, at least one of which was controversial questionable valerian/hops study removed. This may be a misunderstanding on his part; I'm no herbal expert, but herbs prepared with alcohol (in order to get the oil-soluble chemicals, I believe) do not necessarily imply that you consume a lot of alcohol when taking the herb, especially since you consume the herbs in drops.
3. Concerns that the article has degraded (/Archive 1#What Happened?), in which Pixiequix points to (in her opinion) solid references on herbs.
4. Rational Phytotherapy: a physicians Guide To Herbal Medicine: 4th Edition by Volker Schulz, Rudolf Hânsel and Varro E. ISBN:354067963 is suggested as one of the best books on herbs. It may be good to find out the best books on herbs (ones supported by references to scientific research) and put only those in "Further reading" list.

• II 22:39, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Sources to consider

This paper (check bugmenot.com for login info to Medscape) on dietary supplements points to the German monographs as a good source on herbs. They are available here; however, it appears to require registration -- I haven't registered yet. Still, it seems like something that should be noted in the article, no? ImpIn | (t - c) 08:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I will be listing some papers and other resources here, along with whether I have access to them.

• PMID 18560132 Systematic review on the efficacy and safety of herbal medicines for Alzheimer's disease. (no access)
• The Use of Herbal Alternative Medicines in Neuropsychiatry (free access)
• The Psychopharmacology of Herbal Medicine: Plant Drugs That Alter Mind, Brain and Behavior

II | (t - c) 07:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Bach Flower remedies and Australian Bush remedies

I'm wondering if someone can create articles on Bach Flower remedies and Australian Bush remedies or at least make a mention of them in this article. Thanks.NootherIDAvailable (talk) 02:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a wiki. Be bold. Start on it yourself. Just reference your work, and try to make it grammatically correct. II 08:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I see there's something at, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bach_flower_remedies" already. NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC) Is there any scientific evidence for the use of these recently marketed range of products? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michael Bailes (talk • contribs) 06:42, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

picture of violet

Since the caption of the picture discusses the "sweet violet", I replaced the picture of a dog violet with a picture of a sweet violet. It the caption was wrong, please change the caption (including the link,) and change back to the dog violet picture. -Arch dude (talk)

New medicinal herb template

There is a new template at Template:Medicinal herbs & spices. I believe it to be unworkable, as basically all culinary herbs in the Template:Herbs & spices template may also be used for medicinal purposes, and there are thousands of herbs used for strictly medicinal purposes. Badagnani (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Books

Please include Rational Phytotherapy: a physicians guide to herbal medicine by Volker Shulz and/or professionals handbook of complementary medicines by charles w fetrow (internationally-orientated books) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.189.205 (talk) 08:08, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

Why is there no criticism section? There are criticisms scattered all over the article, they should be put together so people can easily see. XcepticZP (talk) 20:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Personally I like a criticism section but we try to avoid criticism sections here. That's the way our articles are supposed to be written. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree why not put all the criticisms on flu vaccines together 14:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC)unknown14:42, 21 December 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.70.14.63 (talk)

Please sign your posts properly with four tildes, not three or five, and not with "unknown". Just FOUR tildes. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

True; why do we put criticisms on all other medical practices but never put a criticism section on vaccines? I mean we put it on pharmasudical medicines why not put one here on this article and in the vaccine articles? 68.70.14.63 (talk) 15:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Systemic Bias against Africa, as usual.

Is Gawo the only medicinal plant in Africa? What about Hoodia? The controversial South Africa umBetshani concoction? Marijuana as used in eg Afrikaner folk medicine? There are thousands of medicines used daily for medicinal and religious purposes, from antimicrobial tree bark infusions to plants that induce lucid dreams in shamans.

This article, like so many others, pretends that the rest of the world stopped existing during the Middle Ages except Europe and the Muslim empire. It's disappointing, and saddening.

Tebello TheWHAT!!?? 06:33, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, one of the beauties of Wiki is that you are free to add this important information to the article, or write a separate article about African herbs. After all, there are only about 3 dozen herbs mentioned so far in this article, out of thousands that are used medicinally. It is not exactly a complete list. Meanwhile, I have added rooibos for starters. --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 19:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge with or cross-reference to articles on phytotherapy and pharmacognosy

There are also articles on phytotherapy and pharmacognosy. The merger of these articles should be considered. Otherwise, they should refer to one another and be clearly disambiguated. Thomas.Hedden (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC).

Hi Thomas.Hedden. My initial response to your comment is on the discussion page of the pharmacognosy article. I do think pharmacognosy should be a separate article that focuses on the more abstract scientific data about herbs. This section would include comprehensive lists of the constituents of each herb, pharmacokinetic data, and so forth. Phytotherapy and/or herbalism should include the clinical/medicinal uses, including both traditional use, as well as substantiation from the medical literature, such asmclinical trials. If herbalism and phytotherapy are kept separate, then herbalism could include the history of herbalism, ethnobotanical information, and so forth. I agree that the focus of each article needs to be clarified. --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 19:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

'Traditional medicinal' and 'folk medicine'

The first sentence contains 'traditional medicine' followed by 'folk medicine'. Since folk medicine links to traditional medicine, is there not only potential for confusion between 'traditional medicinal' and 'traditional medicine' moreover, is this not redundant?Apothecia (talk) 08:18, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

The terms in bold in the first sentence of Wikipedia articles, used parenthetically, are synonyms. --KP Botany (talk) 08:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Latin Binomials

How about adding the latin binomials (in parentheses) after the common names in the "Examples of Plants Used As Medicine" section. I would be happy to do this if there are no objections. --Little Flower Eagle (talk) 03:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. --KP Botany (talk) 04:37, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd even go further, I would only use the latin names and change all articles to the latin name.

Examples of plants used as medicine

I propose to change this article section; instead of a loose list, I'd recommend grouping to the malady that it treats. A proposed divion is:

• Exterior antiseptic medicine (treatment of burns, skin infections, boils, ...)
• Treatment of mouth problems (tooth ache, Aphthous ulcers, ...)
• Wound treatment and skin rehydration
• Ear treatment medicines
• Eye treatment medicines
• Treatment of respiratory problems
• Treatment of fever (colds, ...)
• Digestion relaxing medicines (stomach, intestins)
• Medicines promoting blood circulation (against clogged and or showing veins, headaches, ...)
• Sterilisation medicines
• Plants hindering pain receptors (eg against headaches, pain of wounds, ...)
• Plants inducing sleep
• Medicines promoting detoxification (blood purification, sweat inducing plants, diuretics, ...)

Note that wound treatment is on a different section than the treatment of skin infections, ... this is because the first is a oil/creamish substance (prone to attracting bacteria/infections) and the second is desinfectant alone (not prone to attracting bacteria but with slower skin regeneration properties). Respiration and fever may be combined but most plants work either on 1 of the 2, so perhaps this is best left as is. Sterilisation can be done by smoking the body with Erythrophleum chlorostachyum, or by consuming plant substance of cymbidium madidum, petalostigma pubescens, Eucalyptus gamophylla. Headaches may be aleviated by 2 types of medicine, one working on the root cause and another simply disabling the pain receptors. Some references need to be found first, I made division based on the book "Bush food:Aboriginal food and herbal medicine by Jennifer Isaacs", and modified it based on own experiences/knowledge The plant examples can be placed in section as examples, full List of plants used as medicine article need to be modified too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.243.190.151 (talk) 08:42, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds too restrictive. Science is continuallyn discovering applications for herbs that don't fit into any of the categories offered.Cayte (talk)

I think this is a long, ungainly list which serves little purpose, should be moved to the separate list article and should be replaced with a few examples, maybe three or four. Nineteenthly (talk) 11:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed incorrect information about Lascaux cave paintings

I thought this was interesting and wanted to see the picture, so I checked out the French ministry of culture's website. I looked through every picture on the site and found none that contained plants. Then I found a quote on the site that specifically says that none of the pictures depict the outside environs or any plants. This makes some sense, since it was an Ice Age and probably not one of the major eras of development of the art of herbalism.

Anne Merrill (talk) 23:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Typical scientistic/pseudorationalist bias

The phrase, "folk medicine," should be removed from the opening sentence of this article. On going to the "folk medicine," article, I then found that it was contrasted with the supposedly more "education based," establishment, as though in order to become competent, you don't need to learn anything at all. Use of the term, "folk medicine," in this context is nothing other than a thinly-veiled attack; a condescending assumption of zero credibility.

I've said it before; the pro-establishment bias of Wikipedia truly is sickening. What is even more distressing, is how pervasive it is. There is literally not a single article on this site that I have seen, that deals with a subject that is in some way challenging of the mainstream establishment, where blatant pro-establishment bias is not obvious. The mismanagement of this site, and the abuse of policy, has often managed to induce genuine rage in me.

If mainstream medical science wasn't the utterly contemptible joke that it is, I might not be so angry in response to this. Just yesterday however, I attended the burial of my grandfather, who suffered from cancer for years, before the establishment finally left him for dead. I also lost a kidney at the age of 13, due to a bladder reflux issue that, because of the entirely typical incompetence that I have witnessed on a routine basis among general practitioners, failed to be diagnosed in time to prevent the onset of kidney stones.

The other thing that I wish I understood, is what actually empowers the pedants who apparently run this site; who makes the decision that it is they, as opposed to anyone else, who has authority here? Petrus4 (talk) 13:27, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is supposed to represent the main stream view most prominently. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:52, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Petrus, I'm sorry for your loss of both your grandfather and your kidney. I must however say you seem to have confused medical science with human error. The medical science itself is the nonstop progression of further knowledge and improvement on what already exists, it's a very open field that can be challenged, changed and adapted. There will always be times where it goes wrong of course, not everyone will live forever, or even into their 100s. On average though people will live longer and heathier lives as medical science progresses (unhealthy life style problems not included). Other 'traditional', 'folk' or 'alternative' medical systems are generally dogmatic and closed minded "It's always been done this way so we will never change it" or "Even though it's been disproven beyond reasonable doubt we will argue for it relentlessly anyway". It's a problem with health, and it's a problem with the advance of reason.

Yes, some doctors are less competant than others, and yes medical issues will be missed until it's too late. The end goal is to have a perfect system, although that could take all eternity. The best we can do is to keep improving and do the best we can. Biological organisms degrade over time and evetually die, some early and some late in their lives. That is "all natural" in its truest sense.

Either being misdiagnosed or using a system of medicine that is ineffective or of little effect will, in the end, have pretty much the same outcome to the unfortunate sufferer. The placebo effect may help in many cases, but in the end things go wrong with our bodies and this hurts the people around us, and they lash out at whatever they see as a failure to them.

Dara O'Briain said one of my favourite quotes (paraphrased from memory) "We took herbal medicine, tested it all, and the stuff that worked became 'medicine' and the rest became a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri"

Human nature is irrational and primative, and will likely always be. We have simply covered it up with layers of society and technology but it's hard to move away from that nature and it creates beliefs in things that otherwise make little sense in reality, there are very close connections between cults and alternative medical systems. Use Scientology and Homeopathy as an example, the following points are valid for both:

- One man wrote a series of 'docrine' and they are unqueastionable truths in the minds of the belivers regardless of the advancement of knowledge that shows otherwise

- A disproving argument against the beliefs is not met with reasonable assessment of the information, but met with irrational hostility

- Believers try and tell people that their system is the only way to go and the only system that should be used when there is evidence against those systems

Drug companies and doctors will often be motivated by money and reputation. An ineffective or dangerous drug may on occasion have the evidence surpressed in favour of continued profit, but this is a failure of human nature and happens in any field, not just medicine. That's the problem, not the science and the field of modern medicine which has to always prove itself to show it really does work. Primative witch-doctory is not the salvation of modern heathsystems, control of the profit hungary people that control the industry is.

A bit off topic maybe, but please for your sake and those that may trust your opinions, don't make dangerous, knee jerk and emotional reactions to something as important to society as the medicine that helps repair our abused livers, lifestyle cancers and car crash injuries. Other medical systems just can not handle this.

Danno81 (talk) 11:12, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

IF the idea that alternative medicine never works was true; why would hydrogen peroxide work becouse thats not sold by pharmacies; and are you aware that drugs you say are the only effective treatment are also made with chemacles which are in the end made from compounds in nature so your point is completely wrong. Yes medicine is important but you must understand there are many forms of medicine that work not just one pharmaseudical form. Science is always finding ways to find natural compounds and make many forms of medical use for them even if they are used to make rubber tubes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.70.14.63 (talk) 13:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood my point. Most of what you just said has almost nothing to do with my previous comment or supplies any well thought out ideas. In various marketing practices, including alternative medicine, the word 'natural' is thrown around a lot. It's meaningless when looked at at any depth, I can get into that if you want but this link explains most of what I'd say anyway:

http://skepticblog.org/2009/07/20/3505/

Natural can be used by anyone for any reason as it is an unprotected term, unlike 'Organic' which must meet strict guildlines.

The term "Alternative Medicine" in itself is a loaded term that, through many processes of thought and action, indicates that it is either ineffective or less effective than other treatments (a narrowingly small amount may still have some benifit beyond placebo/expectation). Modern medicine is not one system that shuns all others, it is a comboination of treatments from any source of knowledge, old wives tails, previous treatment considered 'alternative' that have been shown to work, new knowledge, etc. When they're shown to have value they stop being alternative and just become mainstream medicine regardless of its origin. What's left after that is still called 'alternative' but, in general, has been shown to be ineffective or otherwise less effective or even directly dangerous. Modern medicine can use any technique, therapy or compound from anywhere and is not limited to one idea or ideal. 'Systems' such as Homeopathy, Chiropractic, Reflexology, etc, those are the closed minded systems that can't change.

I'm not sure what your point was really, but if you want to make a point please articulate your argument and use some depth of knowledge. Danno81 (talk) 14:15, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

1. Chiropractor only deals with re-adjusting the spine when its out of whack and isnt medicine; plus if it never changed why are chiropractors now using machines that adjust back for them and tell on a live screen when to stop adjusting that area. Practices like reflexology are required to deal with one area by legal defiition. 2. you eat medicine or it is dealing with a form of consumable. medicine has nothing to do with muscle theray or adjusting the spine. 3. Some medicines are actually worse than herbs; some of these worse side effects include: heart attack, stroke heart failure etc so pharma medicine is just as bad in that department; if you want proof of this liten to a medicine advertisemet near to the end. 14:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)unknown14:26, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

68.70.14.63 - Your answer was, again, little to do with any of my points then to make things worse YOU deleted the entire discussion. DO NOT DO THAT! If you don't like the answer given to your comments, you don't just get to surpress the discussion! You seem to have little knowledge of what you're saying and are arguing things that I never even said were true or not true. Some drugs are VERY dangerous I agree. As for the rest of what you said, it has really very little to do with anything of the points I made. Do not surpress this discussion again for your own agenda! Danno81 (talk) 16:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

To be honest Danno youve done nothing to improve this article besides make it anti-herbology biased when wikipedia code sais articles say to make them unsided and balanced; your the one with the agenda not me so get over it becouse not everyone is going to go gun ho with saying all non pharmacudical treatemnts fail. And btw MRI's; colonoscopies and; brain scans are also a "inflexible scince" as well becouse they also deal with 1 part of the body or physeology only so that mutes all your arguments right there. And the only agenda I have is to rebalance this article so yes that is an agenda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.70.14.63 (talk) 16:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, this is really getting nowhere. MRI scanners are tools for diagnosis, colonoscopies are investigative procedures, etc, and not entire medical systems. I'm not sure what mutes all my arguments by saying that? Also, please don't spam the entire chat with attacks against me, and calling me a troll?? And stop editing the text by removing comments you don't like at will as it skews the discussion. Everyone can read what has been put and can make their own minds up.

You keep talking about balance, but that does not mean undue weight. If it can be proven and verified it can go here, if not it can't. Fringe theories and unproven practices can not be stated as fact. You call me "anti-herbology" which is not directly true, I'm anti-'made up stuff that's claimed to be real' and some herbology is very much made up and some has basis. Danno81 (talk) 23:59, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

POV

1. This article keeps repeating that many if not most medicine are derived from plants which is true but just because something is derived from a plant has no bearing on modern herbal medicine. This is just a commonly repeated statement which attempts to increase the credibility of herbal medicine by alluding to modern medicine.
2. The lead states "herbalism is widely considered by the medical community to have a scientific basis" without a reference. It is a scientific basis that says it is mostly ineffective and potentially dangerous.[1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article could use some work. Editing is made more tedious by its size and all these expanded references, but I'll try to put in a little work and I think you could add that Scientific American article, although it should be noted that the last paragraph of the lead discusses these things. II | (t - c) 18:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Note that that article says nothing about herbalism, only pointing out poor production and marketing practices with herbal supplements found in stores. 75.194.169.234 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:46, 23 July 2010 (UTC).

The Scientific American article looks like pretty poor mashup after reading the first page. There were much more serious cases even referenced in pubmed (such as PMID 19371323 and several cases from China) but the claims in this article are largely a suggestive juxtapositon of aruments.

I am more worried how Asian manufacturers mix together herbs. For example standard Vitex agnus-castus extract has a pretty low content of Vitexin but several products avialable in the US are marketed with claims to have at least 10 times higher higher content.

The problem of safety and contaminations is not limited to herbalism - in the US every vitamin pill can be a deadly pill. There is absolutely no reasonable control of them and most come from guess where.

You can mix all kind of stuff into food as well. How much mercury has your fish? It gets even better. Not long ago I was slightly stunned to find food conserved with etidronic acid in Asia. Guess what - it is even allowed by the FDA although I have not the slightest doubt it would be imported even if if it were illegal.

To be sarcastic we could have a template:food_safety_issues with a crossbones and stick it to every single food, herb and vitamin page in wikipedia to make sure everyone realise that. Richiez (talk) 11:39, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

agaricus blazei

I have removed Agaricus blazei from the examples of plants used as medicine due to the fact that the claim about it was not supported by the provided reference. In particular, the article stated that "Agaricus blazei mushrooms may prevent some types of cancer." The attached reference merely states that a chemical isolated from these mushrooms may have some anticancer effects. Firstly, this is not equivalent to saying this substance prevents cancer. More importantly, the fact that a chemical isolated from the mushroom may fight cancer does not imply that ingestion of the mushroom itself will fight cancer; for example, the concentration in the mushroom could be far to low to have any effect its natural state. In any case, both aspects of this claim, correct or not, constitute original research or unpublished synthesis since they are not made by the article. Locke9k (talk) 22:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Does not matter that much as it is a mushroom and not a herb and does not belong here anyway. Richiez (talk) 16:45, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Memorial Sloan-Kettering's About Herbs site

I restored the link to this excellent free database on herbal information, which was removed with no real explanation by Drumzandspace2000 (talk · contribs). Richiez (talk · contribs) reverted saying that their article on vitex was "ridiculous". Here is the article on vitex. There's nothing ridiculous about it. Of the external links, this was the only one remotely mainstream, which is not surprising given that it is managed by Barrie Cassileth, a proponent of evidence-based medicine. Please explain why it should not be restored. II | (t - c) 08:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:EL it would be the responsibility of those who wish an external link to substantiate (a) that the link is of outstanding quality (not just some that is "quite ok") and (b) that the good information can not be merged into the article. Nevertheless I am taking your challenge on Vitex, look at the first paragraph starting with "Chasteberry is a fruit extract." "chasteberry contains active hormones that are also produced by the human body, such as progesterone, testosterone, and androstenedione". Congratulations to the discovery of the first herb that contains these hormones. No source and obviously total bullshit. Next sentence.. "been found to alter the release of gonaditropins". Reminds me of the million monkeys theory - but those would hopefully use a spelling checker. No mention wherever of the mainstream opinion that the main mechanism of action is believed to be a dopaminergic effect. With such a miserable introduction I am strongly prejudiced. Richiez (talk) 10:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Eh, these hormones have reportedly been isolated from vitex. See, for example, this quote from a 2004 source:

Although progesterone, hydroxyprogesterone, testosterone, and androstenedione have been isolated from the leaves and flowers of Vitex agnus-castus (Du Mee, 1993; Gomaa et al. 1978; Snow, 1996), they are only found in trace amounts (Hardy, 2000). Thus, the active principles in chaste-berry fruits responsible for previously detected estrogenic activity have not been determined conclusively.

I have no idea whether or not this is the first herb to have these substances isolated from them. As far as the "mainstream opinion" (unreferenced) that the main mechanism is the dopaminergic effect, it declines to be so authoritative but mentions in the mechanism of action section that "it also contains constituents that bind to dopamine (d1 and d2) receptors and seem to inhibit prolactin release". Of course, we can also look at what a 2001 BMJ clinical trial said as far as mechanism of action for comparison:

The mechanism of action may also be related to modulation of stress induced prolactin secretion via dopamine, without directly affecting luteinising hormone or follicle stimulating hormone.8–15 Binding to opioid receptors,16 β endorphins,17 and neuroactive flavonoids 18 19 may also have a role. The plant has been used traditionally to relieve the symptoms of the premenstrual syndrome, although systematic evaluation of its efficacy is relatively recent.

Regardless, it is very well-referenced so one can easily find the basis for MSKCC's summaries. II | (t - c) 20:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, the plant seems to contain true mammalian steroid hormones in the leaves and flowers. Nevertheless the lead sentence of the introduction says it is dealing with the fruit extract. Afaics mammalian hormones have never been found in the classical fruit extract and if there is some trace amount it is sufficiently negligible than it has never been mentioned in literature dealing with mechanism of action of these extracts. As of the estrogenic activity I thought the consensus was that it is a phytoestrogenic compund and quite weak (not present in classical extract but rather in lipophilic fraction extracts). In normal usage (classical extract) the the herb has a "perceived antiestrogenic activity" - which is probably by indirect action by lowering prolactin, sometimes improving corpus luteum function and confusion what people perceive as estrogenic/antiestrogenic effect. The mskcc summary makes it appear so that the recent trials about postmenopausal effects of Vitex are about the same extract - this is clearly not so as they used a substantially different extract. Did I miss PMID 15783241 in the literature list of the article? The blunt warnings about long term use in the article seem to contradict all evidence but ignore real issues, eg possible ovarian hyperstimulation when used in infertility treatments. Richiez (talk) 10:07, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Do we really need so many links to "Herb Databases"? That is why I removed it, I removed the ones which had the least amount of information, clearly inaccurate information, as well as pay sites. I stand by my removal and given what Richiez (talk · contribs) has shown this was clearly correct. Drumzandspace2000 (talk) 14:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

There is only one other free database, the Medline Plus database. It is much more limited in its coverage with much fewer references. The American Botanical Council has a pay database. What you did was remove the herbal site which is (1) free and (2) had the most amount of information. In the meantime, you left many dubiously useful links. Do we really need so many links to herbalist associations? Also, all of the "Skepticism" links are individual articles which do not technically qualify as external links - these are opinion articles which should be consolidated into the article if they are to be used, but generally are not very high-quality or focused on herbs. II | (t - c) 20:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I am wondering if the MSKCC would database really fit into an article about herbalism. The main site is something about integrative cancer treatment which is rather different scope than normal herbalism. I did not see any HONcode on it. Also an all purpose link to a database from this page would not be very useful. What would be more useful is to identify wikipedia articles about herbalism that are currently in a bad shape and add links to reliable external sites for the individual articles. As of the other links feel free to remove them one by one and see if anyone complains - from time to time its good to remove cruft. Richiez (talk) 10:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

balance assistance

How could I assist in rebalancing this article so as to be an unbiased information source? 68.70.14.63 (talk) 14:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

improve dont troll others who disagree

danno either stop trolling and fix the bias or dont edit at all. This is wikipedia not youtube; i have the best in mind for this article whill all you want to do is be an ass and keep it biased against herbal medicine. And you eat medicine; medicine isnt havig you back adjusted; get a brain and common sense or just leave. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.70.14.63 (talk) 16:47, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you freaking serious? Danno81 (talk) 00:00, 2 January 2011 (UTC)