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My son makes YouTube videos for a living and is sponsored by a small array of advertisers. Recently he was sponsored by a company, Jase Medical, that allows one to visit an online doctor and after answering a few simple questions, you are prescribed 5 emergency antibiotics. The antibiotics treat pneumonia, bladder infections, bio-terror, Montezuma's revenge, and wound infections. I thought this was an incredible premise/service and wanted to share with you the ability to have a potentially life-saving supply on hand in case the SHTF. I filled in the short online questionnaire and received by antibiotics in the mail...

A warning to herbal supplement users: Those store-brand ginkgo biloba tablets you bought may contain mustard, wheat, radish and other substances decidedly non-herbal in nature, but they’re not likely to contain any actual ginkgo biloba.

Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds. Using a test called DNA barcoding, a kind of genetic fingerprinting that has also been used to help uncover labeling fraud in the commercial seafood industry, Canadian researchers tested 44 bottles of popular supplements sold by 12 companies. They found that many were not...

Some herbal remedies may do more harm than good. Researchers writing today in the Journal of the American Medical Association report that 20 percent of herbal medicine products sampled contained dangerous levels of heavy metals. Unlike prescription drugs, herbal medicine products can be sold as dietary supplements, which are not required to undergo rigorous testing before entering the marketplace. Indeed, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) does not require proof of safety or efficacy. Robert B. Saper, now at Boston University's School of Medicine, and his colleagues purchased imported Ayurvedic herbal medicine products from stores near Boston's city...