They don't always. Many modern medicines are quite powerful and come with a plethora of side effects. The desired result can often be acheived with a much milder natural remedy. Sometimes, you could describe taking a prescription for a minor ailment as "buying a cow just to get a glass of milk."

I think the feeling at the bottom of this thinking is that we can't trust the humans involved in the medicine and health industries not to take advantage of everyone else and to give us what we really need, without self-interest and without additional risks. In addition, despite the money invested by pharmaceutical companies, they still screw up badly even when they try to copy something that exists in nature. I also disagree with the premise that artifical medicine is often safer. I believe medicine made by humans will always be inferior to nature, because we haven't been doing it long enough to really know what we are doing and placing in nice looking packaging.

A lot of "artificial" meds are a synthetic to the "natural" version. And artifical doesn't alway mean it's safer - both natural and artificial have potential hazards. Natural medicine has survived for many many centuries where as it's artificial counterpart has around for a shorter period of time. Both have been proven effective. There is a place for both modern and natural medicine. Personally I prefer natural first and modern second - it really depends on the situation of course. My mother has had better results with her Chinese Herbs from her Holistic Practioner than with the artificial meds prescribed by her Doctor. I've used many natural remedies with very good results.

i believe a lot of it has to do with a wholistic approach. by that i mean with synthetic meds they just synthesize the one major active ingredient of the natural remedy when it's many times the other substances in the natural remedy that help make it more effective with fewer side effects. this isn't always true, but in a lot of cases it is ;)

Natural medicines can obviously be dangerous - just because they're natural doesn't mean they're safe. However, you only have to look at the list of side-effects on almost every chemical-based medicine, whether it's OTC or prescribed, to see that in many case, the side-effects are worse than what you are trying to treat. I accept that sometimes they're just covering their bases, but when you see that a product can give you diarrhea or constipation, it doesn't instil much confidence. Then, closer to home for us, as we run an online business selling natural pet health products, there is one drug by Pfizer that is meant to cure vomiting in dogs (especially motion / travel sickness), and yet one of the side-effects is that it causes vomiting. Isn't that crazy? When it comes to our speciality, Canine Parvovirus, then we know from talking to hundreds of customers that the traditional treatments used by vets, which are chemical-based, offer a 33% - 85% chance of success (and it will cost you from $500 USD to $10,000 USD per dog at the vet's). Our natural Parvo Treatment products, however, have a 90% success rate (and the cost is closer to $275, to treat one or more dogs). Then there's the whole issue of vaccinations, which are also heavily-laden with man-made chemicals. Not only do Parvo vaccines actually give dogs Parvo, but they don't even work against the latest 2c strain of Parvo. And on top of that, they can cause both short- and long-term side-effects that include anaphylactic shock, coma and death, and longer-term, a weakened immune system (that of course opens the dog up to all sorts of other illnesses and viruses), as well as chronic inflammation, which is now known to be a leading cause of cancer. So, yes, you need to know what you're doing with any medication, natural or otherwise, but the problem seems to be that in trying to emulate nature, man needs to add in various chemicals, many of which cause additional problems.