The other day I came across an opinion piece by freelance medical reporter Dan Hurley, entitled "Evidence-Based Standards Should Apply to Dietary Supplements, Too".

They should indeed. I certainly wouldn't want to waste my money on unproven, useless and potentially dangerous products. But how evidence-based is allopathic medicine?

Evidence-based medicine - Hurley tells us - is the rallying cry of a generation of physicians. Thankfully, Big Pharma readily obliges with seminars at all-expenses-paid weekend retreats and drug reps bringing gifts, uh, drug information right to the doctors' offices.  Apparently, drug companies preferentially recruit former college cheerleaders for these jobs. I couldn't imagine why.

Nowadays, most clinical drug trials are carried out by pharmaceutical companies. Interestingly, the results of drug trials funded by Big Pharma are always more favourable than independent trials. But then of course drug companies aren't above fudging data, as the Vioxx scandal showed.

In addition, drugs are frequently prescribed for off-label applications. In other words, there is no clinical support for many drug uses whatsoever. So much for evidence-based medicine.

Hurley goes on to claim that evidence-based reviews found supplements and herbals to be either ineffective or outright harmful. He claims for instance that trials supported by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine have concluded that glucosamine-chondroitin does not relieve arthritic pain.

If you want a medical doctor's take on this, I suggest that you visit drtheo.com, the website of Jason Theodosakis, M.D., and read his Review of the NIH Glucosamine and Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (Gait).

The evidence for potential harmfulness, meanwhile, - Hurley goes on to say - grows ever stronger. Since 1983, he informs us, the American Association of Poison Control Centers has tallied more than 1.6 million reports related to the use of supplements, including 251,799 serious enough to require hospitalization. Mercifully he spares us the death toll from this tragedy.

I vaguely recall reading about thirty to forty deaths per year from side effects due to "natural remedies", but over 100,000 deaths per year from "properly" described pharmaceutical drugs. Interesting use of the word "properly", don't you think.

Makes you wonder what planet this Dan Hurley comes from.