I think one should know what they take. Of course some traditional grandmother's remedies are efficient, but not all, and they might have unforeseen side effect

I think one should know what they take. Of course some traditional grandmother's remedies are efficient, but not all, and they might have unforeseen side effects. Just like any regular drug chemical. So I take issue with the tradition-sanctioned approach. Empirical evidence is of course valid, but there are different way to obtain this evidence, some more riskier to people than others, and there comes the rub. I don't think tradition / duration of use are alone good enough. I'm ready to bet you'd trust way more a traditional remedy that's been analyzed and the effect of which are understood, that one that is mysterious. However, what you're saying implies: A) the empirical no-risk evidence comes from centuries of field-testing on people. Logical consequence is run for dear life from "new" herbal / traditional medicine stuff. It fails to take into account historical evidence of useless treatments that were still accepted for centuries (take bleeding patients for example). B) the result from keeping naturally occurring chemicals together in a medicine can make for a more efficient / less aggressive concoction. It's true. But emphasis on CAN here. It also can make you ingest toxic compounds that are totally unnecessary and may be dangerous. The point is you don't know, and since there's nothing miraculous about this kind of stuff, it can be tested ahead, which is the whole point of the FDA, however flawed some of its processes might be. This empirical testing is also how drugs are improved with minimal adverse effect on people (and max adverse effect on mice), and how treating HIV-patients with a cocktail of chems was found to be most effective. The list goes on. I think we absolutely need to be able to explain something before declaring it relatively safe, and remain conscious that there are always outlying risks, be it only allergy. Everything is indeed a chemical, it's a simple enough fact, and people should realize that this holds true for all traditional / herbal remedies as well. This selective chemophobia the author talks about stems imo in large part from a distaste for the pharmaceutical industry (and its shadier practices), but it doesn't make the rational approach of trying to understand how chemicals would affect our organisms, before ingesting them, any less valid.