Isn’t it a bit funny that we were just commiserating over people misunderstanding what we’ve written, and then we, or at least I, am doing a bit of the same. Yes, you did say many things that made your support for plant medicine very clear.

I guess I’m just getting a further lesson about how everyone receives/reads things through the lens of their perspective and what is important to them. I suppose I would have liked it better (and you are obviously never under any obligation to write to suit me) 😁 if you’d said something that said more along the lines of “We don’t know for sure whether these products prevent against this virus because even though many essential oils have proven anti-viral properties, we just don’t know enough about this one to know which ones or if at all as relates to this virus.” The way it came across to me, and I think to at least some others based on the comments, is that they were making patently snake-oil claims, which isn’t exactly the case (at least from my perspective), and that dumb, crazy people are believing that essential oils can kill viruses. It’s really more that these companies are making broad assertions about something is quite possibly a useful part of a wider set of practices but that needs more verification.

The other part that struck me (based on my own perspective and bias) is that if something isn’t FDA certified, it isn’t worth much. I get that some kind of standardized testing prevents people from making wild unverified assertions and that this is important, but every year or so the FDA has to recall things that they’ve certified as safe because they are killing too many people. Zantac was just recently pulled because it is carcinogenic. I also think they also have a bias towards pharmaceuticals rather than more natural health products. In other words, I’m not all that impressed with the FDA and I’m not alone in that.

“The FDA has been criticized by advocates for the supplement industry for prohibiting dietary supplement manufacturers from making research supported claims of effectiveness on the labels of their products. Manufacturers of supplements, which are considered foods for regulatory purposes, are allowed to make only limited “structure/function claims” and are prohibited from claiming that the supplement can prevent, cure, or mitigate a disease or condition regardless of whether or not the supplement undergoes actual testing of its safety and efficacy. Ron Paul (R-TX) opined: “But the FDA and the drug companies are in bed together and they squeeze out competitions and build up their monopolies and they love government medicine because they make more money.”

So, all this is to say, this is what I was reacting to, as well as your tweet mentioning that you like things that are “woo” because to me it implied that anyone claiming that EOs might help against this virus was making a woo claim when it’s really more that they are making a not fully substantiated or proven claim about this particular virus and their products.

So, I hope that clears things up about my responses. 😘