Book Title: Prescription or Poison? The Benefits and Dangers of Herbal Remedies
Author: Amitava Dasgupta PhD
Publication: Hunter House, 2010
ISBN: 9780897935500
My Star Rating: 3 stars out of 5 = It's Okay
Summary Statement: Biased Against Alternative Treatments; Avoids Fact that Many Similar Side Effects for Prescription Drugs Exist
The best thing about this book is the thorough research done and the citing of references and studies to back up the author's writings, so you know he's not making anything up. The laws in America for the testing of prescription drugs are such that there is data on the prescriptions while the herbs have no such requirement. Therefore the studies are not always available on the herbs or any of the alternative treatments. The author is so cautious it seems he always errs on the side of caution going with the prescription drug with a study over a very old plant based remedy which doesn't have a study on it. He is playing it safe, almost acting like a lawyer in his attempt to be so cautious.
I also note the bias in the subtitle "the benefits and dangers of herbal remedies" YET he does not discuss negative known side effects of prescription drugs! Also read carefully the title which implies that the prescription is good but the alternative medicine is poison, it doesn't imply that sometimes the prescription drug can be the poison. For example he may recommend against using a certain herb or plant based remedy as it sometimes causes liver damage yet many very common top selling prescription medications are used today which have more data behind them showing they cause liver damage. Doctors monitor patients who take Lipitor (used to lower blood cholesterol levels) with blood tests to look for signs that the drug is damaging the liver. Users of Warfarin (aka Coumadin -- first used as a rat poison now used as blood thinner) and Lithium (used to treat depression) are monitored to prevent poisoning by too-high levels of the toxic materials in the patient's bloodstream. Yet Dr. Dasgupta is so cautious that he warns the reader that St. John's Wort can cause photosensitivity (which, come on, is no big deal compared to some of the known side effects of some of the depression prescription medications which are the other choices).
What I wound up liking the most about this book was the thorough explanation of various alternative treatments and supplements. I learned more about the general nature and history of homeopathy than I'd read elsewhere for example. I also learned something I'd not seen in my readings about herbal tinctures: that a study has proven the shaking action of the plant matter in the menustrum is vital to the herbal medicine making process.
Who is this book for is another question to be answered. There is too much here for the layperson reader to buy and use to look up say, how to best treat their common head cold. I would bet only a small number of very interested laypeople would buy this book to inform themselves and if they did they'd not read it cover to cover as they'd not care to know the best or worst treatments for a lot of conditions they don't suffer from and also of treatments they may have never even heard of in their life.
The book probably is best for western medical doctors who want to know more about integrating what they call alternative medicine or for alternative medicine providers to use and inform themselves with.
As I read the book I kept thinking it is so fear-based that I kept putting it down vowing to not ever want to take anything! My opinion after reading the book was to think that the factory made prescription drugs must be safer than alternative remedies, but if you read the package inserts required by law to be included with the prescription medicine you will learn they have plenty of dangers themselves! And let's not even think about the news report I just heard of the number of pharmacy mix-ups where patients are given wrong drugs or wrong doses that make them sick.
I'm rating this book 3 stars = it's okay. I liked the research and felt it was well written and approachable for me as a layperson who has a strong interest in health and wellness and who formerly worked in the field of western medicine. I don't love the book as I feel a bias is there that falsely implies prescription drugs are safer when in reality, they really they are not always safe either. Picking a treatment can be compared with voting for politicians there is not always a great candidate, we must sometimes go with either the Devil We Know instead of the Devil We Don't Know or we go with the one we think has the lesser of two evils. This book at least seeks to inform us further, which is why I can't say I dislike or hate the book.
Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the Library Thing Early Reviewers program with an agreement to review it on the LibaryThing.com website. I was not paid to write the review or to blog it.
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