Strophanthus, WebMD, and the Double Standard of Modern Medicine. WebMD calls Strophanthus a “poison” yet admits it’s medicine. Why are herbs vilified while Big Pharma drugs with deadly risks are normalized?
Alternative medicine is often dismissed with a casual sneer: “unscientific,” “dangerous,” or “folk tradition.” Meanwhile, mainstream pharmaceuticals — with long lists of known side effects, often including heart failure, stroke, or death — are marketed as “standard of care.” The herb Strophanthus provides a striking case study of how the sanctioned medical narrative marginalizes alternatives while normalizing pharmaceutical risks. WebMD, one of the internet’s most trafficked health portals, offers a telling example. Their entry on Strophanthus begins with a warning: “Strophanthus is an herb that has been used as an arrow poison in Africa.” Only later does the site concede that Strophanthus seeds are used to make medicine . This rhetorical framing matters. By leading with “poison,” readers are primed to fear, rather than to inquire. The deeper irony? Some of the most widely used modern drugs also originated from natural poisons — digitalis from foxglove, asp...