Letters to the Editor
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What BlueAmberol doesn't say...
...is that as a direct result of every health food store in the country writing to Congress, anything this side of rat poison can now be considered a "dietary supplement" and is virtually untouchable by the government.
A case in point: stevia, an alternative to sugar. Banned in several countries, and currently not approved in the US as a food additive (because the rules on additives are much more stringent), stevia is available for sale as a dietary supplement though recent animal tests have shown mixed results in terms of toxicology and adverse effects of stevia extract, with some tests finding steviol to be a weak mutagen while newer studies find no safety issues.
So you herb-munchers keep on smugly gnawing away at tree bark, with little or no oversight to make sure that the dosage is consistent, the ingredients won't kill you, or even assurance that the same plant is used all the time (let alone if it's been cut with the aforementioned rat poison). Just because it's "natural" doesn't mean it's safe.