Morning Scepticism: Herbal

It's been said that alternative medicine at works is just called medicine. I there's a very easy indicator of success: the cost. While pharmacies do a great disservice by selling herbal products alongside real medicine, there's a clear difference in cost. Now while it could be taken as Big Pharma profiteering, the difference in price can best be explained by the fact that one works and the other doesn't. I tend to think that the price of herbal pills is a "what do I have to lose?" approach to sales, meanwhile real medicine is priced in such a way that if it didn't work then there'd be no reason to buy it. This might not be always true, but it seems a good rule of thumb.