I don't have anything against herbal products per se, but generally I think mainstream medicines are more effective, safer, and better tested short and long term.

I take your point regarding the university study, I wasn't saying their research was bias, perhaps it seemed like I was implying it which wasn't my intention. However, I do think these small study papers have poor statistics, any conclusions based on 10-15 people are weak even for a pilot study. I think any scientifically minded person would agree. For example, there is a clinical trial for a drug to replace lyrica which has 1000 patients in it at the moment. I hope it works out for them.

A lot of mainstream medicines are derived from plants so it would be foolish to deny the value the plants in medicine. However I am a big believer in science and medicines that have been properly tested, just having one paper on a small group of people taking a herb or any medicine doesn't justify its safety or efficiency. It takes many years of hard work to know a medicine is safe, and even then, it will cause problems for some people. Thanks for an interesting discussion.