Well, just like modern/western/industrial pharmacology, traditional medicines range from Very Effective down to Actually Quite Bad For You ... and their efficacy and safety are heavily influenced by the preparation method, dosage, the subject's physiology, other medications (including food) being taken, and so on.
So while it's not 'really dumb' to discount any traditional medicine because it wasn't made by a profit-driven multi-national corporation, it perhaps indicates some naivete regarding the provenance of many current 'modern' medicines. Some casual reading on digitalis, neem, cinchona, and willow bark may be enlightening -- most people on the planet, including you, have almost definitely used at least one of those (or, I'll concede, a synthesized version of the active chemicals taken from those plants).
There's some great resources on the net that speak to the role of plants in modern medicine - apart from the story you just read - keep in mind how many $'s have been spent over the past hundred years trying to come up with a synthetic cure for malaria.
So while it's not 'really dumb' to discount any traditional medicine because it wasn't made by a profit-driven multi-national corporation, it perhaps indicates some naivete regarding the provenance of many current 'modern' medicines. Some casual reading on digitalis, neem, cinchona, and willow bark may be enlightening -- most people on the planet, including you, have almost definitely used at least one of those (or, I'll concede, a synthesized version of the active chemicals taken from those plants).
There's some great resources on the net that speak to the role of plants in modern medicine - apart from the story you just read - keep in mind how many $'s have been spent over the past hundred years trying to come up with a synthetic cure for malaria.