HerbMedwww.herbmed.orgBackground: HerbMed is a catalog of herbal...

HerbMed

www.herbmed.org

Background: HerbMed is a catalog of herbal medicine maintained by the Alternative Medicine Foundation, a Potomac, Md., nonprofit devoted to integrating Western and complementary healing techniques. The Web site is aimed at both consumers and doctors who have questions about the track records of medicinal herbs.

What Works: The site covers many of the herbs found in over-the-counter preparations--St. John’s wort, echinacea, saw palmetto, sassafras--listing the clinical trials and side effects of each, with links to abstracts of the relevant studies and a discussion of “ethnobotanical use” (folk remedy uses). The information is presented without judgment, but the site could be more consumer-friendly: The content is highly technical, with plant genus names mixed freely with biochemical jargon. Yet in an area of medicine swimming in healing myths and snake oil, the hard science is refreshing.

--Benedict Carey