Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that if they don't trust aspirin, they should buy a kit that lets them make aspirin (or salicin, rather) at home from willow bark. Still safer than consuming arbitrary unknown amounts of salicin, together with whatever else is in the bark besides salicin. Let me put it this way: the big-pharma drug manufacturing (and more generally, medical-equipment manufacturing) pipeline is set up such that the only…
> heavy-metal soil toxicity; by pesticides; by coincidental allergens in non-active-ingredient plant matter The exact same risks are in your grocery store produce aisle. I'll grant that illegal marijuana has higher risk, but if it's regulated like any legal food crop I don't see the difference; in fact, I'd say there's less, since people consume it in relatively low quantities.
Doctors know there's a certain number of X-factors a patient can't avoid (like e.g. eating food from random sources if they're not under in-patient care) but they don't want to introduce new ones if they can help it.
Another analogy: a doctor will never prescribe you "a supplement." They might tell you getting more vitamin B in your diet would be good, but they'll never tell you to go out and buy a vitamin-B complex supplement. If they think you really need vitamin-B in a pill, they'll prescribe an actual big-pharma-pipeline-produced pill containing vitamin B.
Why? Because who-the-heck knows what's in the random supplement you bought off Amazon is why. If the pharmacy says they got a pill from big-pharma mfgr X, and mfgr X says they produced it (and the FDA endorses mfgr X), then that's a chain of custody and a chain of responsibility that holds them to account, and so ensures that there really is vitamin B (and nothing else) in the pill. That means you're not getting any extra risks just from taking the pills, beyond some weird interaction between you and vitamin B. Whereas, those supplement pills from Amazon? Nobody checked those. Your doctor does not want you to take random unchecked pills that may or may not contain vitamin B, and may-or-may-not contain lead/mercury/cyanide/whatever. They want you to take pills that certainly do contain vitamin B, and certainly don't contain those other things. Thus, prescriptions; thus, pharmacies; thus, the FDA itself.