The Life of a Pharmacognosist: A Jack of All Trades

Despite the conventional wisdom among pharmaceutical, medical, and related industries that drug therapy is scientific and traditional herbal therapy is nonscientific but rather, backward and full of mumbo jumbo; neither is scientific. The drug development part may be highly scientific, but once a drug (a synthetic chemical) enters our body that is infinitely complex, composed of billions of moving chemicals, living cells, tissues, and other entities, there is no science to direct it to go past all these to reach its supposed target(s), such as a receptor or enzyme, to accomplish its mission. Only divine guidance and sheer luck can get it past all these potential moving targets to its presumed one(s). Hence, drug therapy or herbal therapy (that happens inside our complex body) is not scientific. It is simply gambling and trial and error, along with time and prior experience. Does it sound shocking to you? The author himself only realized this fifteen years ago after having been professionally involved in both the drug and herbal fields for forty years. He speaks out about this to the general public only now, and for the first time.